Brothers
by Phankam
Summary: What is it like for Albus to have James as his older brother? Does James really dislike him as much as he pretends, or does he actually care a lot about his little brother? Various episodes depicting James and Albus' relationship.
1. Boys will be boys

**Disclaimer:** _If I owned Harry Potter, I wouldn't be posting this as fanfiction, I'd probably be publishing a new book. J.K. Rowling owns it all._

---

"Albus, stop following me around." The taller boy demanded, stopping abruptly and turning around to frown at his little brother.

"But James, I d-don't remember how t-to..." Albus stuttered nervously, not wanting to make his older brother angry again.

"It's not my fault you don't remember how to get to the common room." James exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

"Please, James. It'll be the last time. I promise."

"I'm going to the library anyway." Al opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when his brother pointed at him with his wand, looking visibly upset. "And _stop_ following me."

"But James..." he eyed the wand warily.

"For Merlin's pants, why did you have to be sorted into Gryffindor?!" James looked exasperated, lowering his wand. "Now, seriously. The room is that way. Stay away from me."

Albus nodded, and James smiled, self-satisfied. He turned around again and left the younger boy standing alone in the empty corridor. Al watched as his brother left, and turned around to follow the direction James had shown him.

He honestly did not remember how to get to the common room! It was just his first week at Hogwarts! Why was James so mean to him at school?!

He walked in silence, wondering why anyone else wasn't in that area of the castle. Was it forbidden? The thought scared him almost immediately. He didn't want to get in trouble, not on his first week, not _ever_. It was enough for his parents that James got in trouble so often...

Al started panicking as he realised he was completely alone, and that he didn't know where he was, and that the place he was might be forbidden. He started running, longing to find a staircase.

He found one hidden that went downstairs. He hoped he would find the Great Hall and ask someone there. He ran down the stairs, wondering why were they so long and where exactly would they take him. He finally made it into another corridor, and looking back realised that the staircase was hidden behind a wall on that end. He looked around, and his heart sank: now he seriously didn't recognise the place where he was standing.

"Who's that?" he jumped when he heard an unfamiliar voice. He turned around and saw three boys, all of them older than him, staring. Slytherins.

"Isn't that Potter?" the tallest of them asked, smiling slightly.

"Little Potter, as a matter of fact." The first one said, smiling too. He had his hand in where Albus guessed his wand was.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" the third one asked. Albus thought his last name was Nott, but he wasn't so sure.

"I'm lost." Al said, remembering what his father had said about Slytherin not being so bad. Maybe those boys would help him get back to the Great Hall.

"Lost?" Nott repeated, looking at the two boys on his side. "That's a shame."

"Can... c-can y-you tell m-me where the G-Great Hall is?" Albus felt stupid, but he couldn't help but to stutter when he was nervous. The first boy laughed. Al clutched his wand inside his robe's pocket, aware that he alone couldn't do anything against those three boys, who were not only more experienced than him but also bigger.

"We don't like Gryffindors, especially your kind."

"My kind?" Al repeated, not quite understanding.

"Weasleys and Potters. _That_ kind."

"Okay... I'll find the way on my own, then." Albus replied, turning around.

"Get him, Goyle." He heard Nott's voice and he broke into a run straight into the wall he had just come from. It was just like getting into Platform 9 ¾, and he started running up the steps, now clutching his wand maybe with too much strength. He heard the footsteps of the three boys behind him, and he started touching the wall as he ran. When his hand felt that the wall wasn't solid, he ran through it and appeared into another empty and unknown corridor. He wondered how big the castle was.

"He went through that wall!" he heard one of the older Slytherins yelling. He started running once again.

The small boy ran as quickly as he could, looking for a place where to hide from his pursuers. He opened an empty classroom's door and hid behind it, breathing heavily. He was not very sure why the older boys were chasing him, but they sure did not look happy or friendly.

He stood there, silent, waiting for something to happen. He heard the footsteps running past the classroom, and he felt relieved. Whoever those Slytherins were and whatever their problem with him was, he had managed to escape.

He sighed and looked the classroom for the first time. He knew he had never been there before and also that probably not many people got in there very often. The desks had dust on them, and there was no desk for the professor at the front. Instead, there was a huge mirror. And he was surprised he hadn't seen the mirror before: it was almost as high as the classroom ceiling, if not the same height, and it had a very impressive ornate gold frame. He walked towards it to read the inscription on it.

"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." He read out loud. "What does that mean?"

He had inherited his dad's curiosity, and couldn't help but to walk even closer to the mysterious mirror. From a distance, he could see his normal reflection, but as he got closer he started noticing that there was something strange about the mirror.

He stopped right in front of it, and stared disbelievingly at the mirror. He looked over his shoulder to verify he was still alone, and he indeed was. He turned his sight back to the mirror, and tried to figure out what was going on.

In the reflection, he wasn't standing there alone. He was standing with his older cousins Fred and Louis and his brother. They looked older and were dressed in scarlet robes and carrying broomsticks. The only different thing about his attire in comparison to the other boys' was that he was wearing what looked like a badge. The three older boys smiled, and his reflection smiled too. James had his arm around his shoulders, and for once he looked _proud_ of standing next to young Albus.

Al turned around, not wanting to see that picture anymore. He could've inherited his dad's curiosity but he wasn't half as brave as Harry Potter had been at his age. Albus Potter was scared again…what was going on with that mirror?

He walked towards the classroom door again, not quite managing to stop thinking about what he had seen in the strange mirror. Would it ever be possible for James to stand next to him and look like he actually _liked_ him?

He opened the classroom door, tears up in his eyes. He knew James would never like him because he was nothing more than his _annoying_, little brother.

"Nott! There he is!" he jumped in fear and saw Goyle running towards him from the other end of the corridor. He started running once again and he turned left. He looked over his shoulder to see if he was still being chased, and he accidentally ran into someone else. He looked up in fear, pointing his wand, thinking he would find the third Slytherin.

"Albus, what are you doing here?" James looked annoyed once again. James looked up from his brother as two of the three Slytherins appeared around the corner, both of them carrying their wands.

James pushed his younger brother aside and flicked his wand as he said an incantation. The bigger boy tripped and fell flat on his face, and the second one ran into him, falling as well. Nott appeared around the corner as well, and before he could understand what had just happened, James casted the Jelly-Legs jinx on him.

"That was incredible." Al said in delight at his brother's magical performance. James grabbed his arm and pulled him, and they both ran. James made a turn right and then left, and found yet another hidden staircase. He stopped running after a while, not saying a word to his little brother.

Al suddenly realised he knew where they were. It was close to the Gryffindor tower. As they approached the fat lady's portrait, James glanced at him.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a whisper. Al nodded. "Did they hurt you?" Al shook his head. "Okay, good."

James said the password and they both walked into the common room.

"Don't tell anyone I helped you." James said in a threatening voice. "Now get away from me."

Albus didn't argue this time. James walked away from him once again, and sat next to Louis, who seemed to be doing homework.

For once, Albus decided he would do exactly what his brother had told him to.

Because now he knew that deep inside, James cared about him, no matter what he said.

---

_This is going to be a seven-chapter long story (one for each of Albus' years at Hogwarts) and it'll have scenes like this one of James and Albus' relationship as brothers..._

_I'm both a younger and older sister, and I know how some siblings' relationship works... and I thought it'd be cool to write about James and Albus. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Please review, it is always nice to have some feedback! It usually makes my day whenever I check my e-mail and I find out someone reviewed! :)_

_-Phankam._


	2. Another reason

**Disclaimer:**_I can only wish I owned Harry Potter. I just own my unhealthy obsession. J.K. Rowling owns it all._

"Quidditch trials are in a couple weeks." Al heard the news from his fourth-year cousin Louis, who looked very happy about it. "Most of last year's team left school already, and Seb Carter is the new captain, and..."

"You think you'll have a better chance of making the team because he's dating Dominique?" James asked in a mocking voice. He was a third-year, but Louis was barely twenty-days older than him.

"Well, no! But..." Louis didn't say a word. Fred Weasley, who had been silent the whole time, laughed. "It doesn't matter! Are you guys trying out? The team is four players short. They need a beater, a chaser a seeker and a keeper."

James and Fred looked at each other. They had been playing quidditch together for the longest time and they always thought of themselves as being better than Louis. According to them, the only one with quidditch abilities in Louis' family was Dominique, who was a sixth-year Ravenclaw and played as a Seeker.

"I am definitely trying out." James finally said. "Fred and I are the best beaters ever."

"I'm a rather good chaser." Louis said, smiling widely. "Right?"

"Well... yeah, a little." Fred smiled as he said this. Albus was sitting at the next table in the common room, supposedly working on a Potions essay with Rose, and he couldn't help but to listen carefully to the conversation his cousins and brother were having because he wanted to try out for the quidditch team as well: he knew that previous year's Seeker had left Hogwarts and the position was open, and he was thinking that maybe he could be the replacement...

"You haven't written a single word." Rose startled him.

"I got distracted." Albus mumbled and got back to his Potions essay, being careful not to listen to another word. If James knew he was doing that _again_, he would be completely angry at him, and he knew better than to make James angry.

"They only need one beater though... I mean, Seb is the other beater." Al stopped writing when he heard this, wondering what James and Fred would say about that.

"It doesn't matter. I can try out for Seeker too, like my dad."

Albus wasn't sure how he felt when he heard that. If James tried out for Seeker... he probably didn't stand a chance against his older brother.

...

"Okay, I'm sick of this." Rose exclaimed suddenly, putting down her quill. Albus turned to stare at her. They were both sitting at their usual table in the common room, enjoying that most of the older Gryffindors were at Hogsmeade.

"Sick of what? Your Defence Against the Dark Arts homework?"

"I'm sick of you not listening to me talking. What has gotten into you? You've been so... so... so not like you lately." She managed to sound so much like her mother that it slightly scared Al.

"I'm just distracted." Al replied, shrugging.

"Well, _obviously_. The question is why."

Albus stared at her cousin, not quite sure of what to say. The truth was that he had been thinking about the upcoming Quidditch trials and what was he going to do.

"I know that face. You're worried about something, aren't you?" Rose asked, completely changing the tone of her voice. Al stared at Rose, asking himself whether it'd be worth it to tell her the problem. She could be really helpful at times, but she surely wouldn't understand his problem... "You can trust me, Al. We've been best friends since... since you were born exactly two days after me."

"Do you really have to point that fact out?" Al raised an eyebrow. Rose smiled.

"In a big family as ours, it's good to have the age differences clearly stated."

"Age differences? It's just two days." Albus laughed. "I mean, I understand Louis teasing James about being twenty days older than him and being a whole year ahead of him at Hogwarts, but you?"

"It doesn't matter Al." Rose stopped smiling. "Right now that's beside the point."

Albus opened his mouth to protest, but Rose's face expression stopped him.

"What's wrong, Al?"

"It's... the Quidditch trials coming up..." he noticed that all trace of seriousness disappeared from her cousin's face as he mentioned the sport.

"Oh _please_ Albus, how do you boys manage to do that?"

"Do what?"

"To turn every problem into _Quidditch._"

"You didn't let me finish."

"I'm sorry. Continue."

"I want to try out for Seeker." Al said. Rose made a hand gesture to encourage him to continue. "But James wants to do so too."

Rose looked as if she understood almost immediately.

"Oh. So this is just another James issue." She sentenced. Al nodded, slowly. He always confided Rose with his secrets and problems. The only thing he had never told he was about the time James had helped him when three Slytherins were chasing him... and he hadn't told just because he had promised James he wouldn't, and he felt like he couldn't betray his brother on the one event in their lives that made him think James cared about him. "Are you trying out?"

"Well, that's kind of the problem." Albus didn't get how Rose hadn't understood that... after all, she was supposed to be the smart one.

"You're a better Seeker than James, so that shouldn't be a problem." Albus was surprised that it took Rose so long to realise.

"That's not the problem. It's just that I don't want to be chosen over him... he's always wanted to be on the Quidditch team and this is his chance and..."

"It is your chance too."

"But..."

"But what? Albus, I'm sure James will understand. Maybe you should tell him that you're trying out first though... that way he won't be too surprised or... yeah." She was going to say 'too upset', but refrained to do so. The last thing Albus needed was to have another reason not to try out. "Besides, a little competition won't kill him."

Albus smiled a little.

"Maybe you're right."

Rose smiled back, and then got back to her homework. Albus thought for a second to do the same thing, but instead he daydreamed about becoming the new Seeker for Gryffindor.

...

"James, wait for me!" Albus ran after his brother when he noticed he was leaving the Great Hall after breakfast with Fred. He caught up with them quite easily. "I need to talk to you."

"Not now, Al. I can't be late for Potions." James said, not even looking at his younger brother. Fred glanced at him.

"Please James, it's important."

"Albus, stop being so annoying." James said under his breath.

"Don't worry James, I'll cover up for you with Professor Vaughn." Fred said, and winked at Albus. James simply nodded. "See you in a while."

"Sure." James and Albus stopped walking almost at the same time and watched as Fred left for the dungeons. James turned around to face the short green-eyed boy. "What is it, Al?" he finally asked, hands in pockets.

"I j-just..." Al was angry at himself for stuttering... would he ever get over that stupid little habit when he was talking to James? "I w-was w-wondering if y-you..."

"If I what?" James looked at his watch. "I'm late, Al, spill it out already."

"Wouldyomindiftryoutfortheteam?" he said that very fast. James blinked a couple times, and then looked annoyed.

"Say that again. And _slowly_, please." Al took a deep breath, and wondered why he felt so _little_ when he was trying to be serious and older like James. He was only one year ten months and two days younger than he was. He took a deep breath and tried again.

"Would you mind if I try out for the Quidditch team?" he managed to say all that without stuttering and without feeling like an idiot. James stared at him.

"Why would I care? As long as you don't get all over me it'll be fine." James shrugged, and actually _smiled_ a little. "What position are you trying out for?"

This was what Albus had feared.

"S-S-See-k-ker..." he said almost in a whisper. James stopped smiling.

"_What?_"

"Don't b-be angry! It's j-just that I... it's the o-only p-position..."

"It doesn't matter, Al." James said, rolling his eyes. Albus was confused. "It doesn't matter, because you don't stand a chance against me."

He turned around and left young Albus Severus standing there, all by himself, just like he would always do.

...

_Dear Albus:_

_Don't worry about what your brother says. I'm sure you'll both be able to play on the team. After all, we all know that James is fonder of beating or chasing rather than seeking. And mum and I won't care if you don't make the team... we'll be proud that you tried out and did your best, regardless of the results._

_Love,_

_Dad._

Albus read the letter for the tenth time that day. He was walking towards the Quidditch pitch with his broomstick under his arm, and Rose next to him, giving him all sorts of tips she had read in a book about Quidditch that her mother had recommended.

There were no other words to describe his present state of mind: he was nervous, very nervous. He thought his father's response hadn't been very comforting, for it hadn't answered his main concern... _what if he made the team in the position that James wanted?_

He thought over all the possibilities and was positively freaking out. He didn't want James to be angry at him... what if he never got over it? What if this made him dislike Albus even more? They had never been close to each other... since Albus had memory, it had always been about fighting over things and later about Albus meddling too much in James' life... why would this be different? He didn't want to give James another reason to _hate_him.

"I'm not doing it." He said, stopping abruptly. It took Rose a couple steps to stop and turn around.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to give James another reason to hate me." He stated in a matter-of-fact way that reminded Rose of her mother.

"James doesn't _hate_ you." She said. "It's just that..."

She seemed to be deep in thought for a while.

"It's like Hugo and me. I don't like him to get into my things, it's a little annoying. Maybe James feels that way about you."

"I'm not as annoying as Hugo is!" Al said, completely hurt by the comparison. Hugo was Rose's nightmare with red hair and freckles.

"I know you aren't, but maybe that's what James thinks. I'm sure that deep inside he loves you... you're his brother, after all."

Albus thought those last words over and over again as Rose dragged him to the Quidditch Stadium.

"It's worth trying out." Rose said as they got closer to the group of about ten people willing to be on the team. He immediately recognized three of the people there: a blonde, a red-haired and a black-haired, all standing together and talking to each other: Louis, Fred and James.

Some meters away from the crowd stood Seb Carter, a tall sixth-year who looked rather charming and nice.

Albus wondered if that guy's decision would affect his already weak relationship with his older brother.

...

"I've taken my decision." Seb announced as he paced slowly. Albus gulped, wondering what he would say. He was completely positive that he had done his best as a Seeker, and he was having an internal struggle between his wish to be on the team and his wish to not have James angry. "Our keeper will be Daniel Wood."

The big fourth year beamed at the news and Albus heard him something like 'can't wait until I tell dad'. Albus started shifting his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the situation.

"As a beater, we'll have Fred Weasley. Potter did pretty well, but I'm sure Fred will be as good as they say his father was." Fred smiled widely at that, and Albus knew he must be really proud to make the same position his dad and the uncle he was named after had played for five years. James looked happy for his cousin as well. "Our seeker will definitely be Albus Potter. You were quite fast boy, but I guess it's because it's in your blood as well."

He felt like his stomach was suddenly filled with heavy cement. He turned to look at his brother, trying to see his reaction to the news, but James' face was expressionless.

"The chaser was hard to choose... so many talented players." Seb looked thoughtful for a while. "I finally decided that we'll go for Weasley."

Albus felt even worse than before. His brother didn't change his expression or lack of thereof.

"Ah... and I almost forget. Tim Houck won't be able to play on a couple games this year, so I chose a substitute chaser for those games. That'll be you, Potter. You were quite impressive as well."

James simply nodded. Seb said a couple more things and then dismissed them. Al really wanted to talk to his brother, who seemed rather unimpressed, like he didn't care at all about the results. Fred and Louis noticed this and left him alone: they both knew it wasn't good to deal with James when he was trying to cope with his frustration that way.

Albus walked right behind him, and was glad when he noticed Rose didn't approach him.

"James..." he called. James stopped, but didn't turn around. "Are you okay?"

"Sure, why not?" he turned around, and shrugged. "It's not that bad."

Al was surprised to hear that James didn't sound upset at all. In fact, he was sporting a weak smile.

"Everyone knows he chose Louis over me because he's dating Dominique. Well, let's just hope Tim Houck can't make it to any of the games."

"Aren't you angry at me?" Al couldn't stop himself from asking that. James looked quite thoughtful for a while, but then simply shook his head. "Are you serious?"

"You're more of a seeker than me, dad always says it. You're more... well, more like_you_ and dad. I guess I'm more of a chaser." He added, not sounding really convinced. Al opened his mouth to say something but James made a gesture with his hand that stopped him. "Seriously Al. I'm proud you made the team. And we'll be playing together very soon... or at least as soon as Carter realises that Louis is a complete mess."

Albus laughed at that, and felt as if a heavy weight had just been lifted off his back.

"Thanks James."

"Don't mention it." James said, not smiling anymore. And Albus knew he was serious: he didn't want anyone to hear about this. "If people ask me, I'll say I let you have the position... that's just how good I am. It might even catch the girls' attention, who knows."

He shrugged and left without saying another word. Albus walked a few steps behind, not wanting to get into his brother's personal space. Rose joined him soon afterwards.

"I told you it'd be alright." She said. Al nodded.

"Yeah, I guess you were right..."

"...as always."

_This second chapter turned out longer than what I expected, but I actually liked it rather a lot. This is dedicated to two good friends of mine, who happen to not only be brothers but to be also identical twins, and their relationship is so much like James and Al's it's even a little funny._

_Thanks to RedCloakedMaiden and sarahpotter42 for reviewing... it always makes my day to receive feedback, so don't be shy! A simple 'it was nice' will do the trick! :)_

_-Phankam._


	3. Family and pranks, part I

**Disclaimer:**_I don't own Harry Potter, I just wish I did. J.K. Rowling owns him._

---

Summer had been long and it was finally coming to an end. Albus woke up earlier than anyone else. For a moment he couldn't recognize where he was sleeping, but then realised he was in Uncle George's room in The Burrow. On the bed next to him his brother James was sleeping like there was no tomorrow.

Albus got up quietly and went downstairs and fixed himself some breakfast. He ate in silence, shooting occasional glances at the kitchen door, hoping someone would eventually join him.

The last two weeks of summer that they had spent in The Burrow could be considered two of his favourite weeks in his whole life. For the first time, his older cousins –who weren't much older than him anyway- had allowed him to play Quidditch with them, and he had enjoyed it greatly. He had also been hanging out with his brother James more than before, and he felt like he wasn't being treated like he was a little boy anymore.

"Good morning, Al." His cousin Louis walked in the kitchen, yawning. He was the oldest Weasley cousin, and he liked this position a lot. He messed his hair in an attempt to make it look untidy like his Potter cousins and sat down. Albus noticed he was wearing his newly acquired prefect badge on his pyjamas, and it reminded him of the stories Uncle George would tell them about Uncle Percy.

"Good morning. Are we playing Quidditch today?" Albus had to ask. It was the last day before they had to go back to Hogwarts, and he and James were going back home that night to get their things ready.

"Fred is leaving early today. Apparently he hasn't bought anything for school yet." Louis explained as a dark brown owl entered the kitchen with the Daily Prophet attached to its leg. Louis took it and the owl left. He opened the paper and started reading. "And I'm leaving early too, so it'll be just you and James."

"Oh..." Albus was a little disappointed. After all, he had had lots of fun playing with them. Well... at least they still got to play Quidditch at school. He didn't dare disturb Louis as he was looking through the newspaper pages, so he ate in silence instead.

...

"James, why don't we play Quidditch?" Albus asked. James was sitting at the kitchen table polishing his broomstick's handle with extreme care.

"Just the two of us? That'd be boring." James said, rolling his eyes. Albus frowned.

"C'mon, a one-on-one." He insisted. James shook his head and turned the page of his father's _Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare____. _

"Fine then. I'll go fly on my own, then." Albus walked a few steps towards the back door before James said anything.

"You better get used to it." James muttered.

"What do you mean?" Albus turned around to face his brother again. James raised his head to look at him.

"What do I mean about what?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"What you just said about me getting used to it?"

"Oh. Well." James looked serious. "I just meant that… you know. I've just been hanging out with you lately only because it's summer."

Albus looked puzzled. What was James talking about? They had been almost like friends all summer long, so what was this about?

"Albus." James stood up and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "We're not friends. We're brothers."

"We can be friends and brothers." Albus said. "What about the Scamander twins?"

"Well, they're twins. I have friends at school, and you have friends."

"I don't understand…"

"I won't hang out with you at school. You're my little brother."

"But we've been getting along all summer…"

"If I told you you had to hang out with Lily or Hugo at school, would you?"

"Of course not! They're way younger than me." Albus seemed offended. James nodded and smiled a little.

"Lily's one year and ten months younger than you." James pointed out. Albus knew what he was referring to: it was the same age difference between him and James.

"Okay, I get it." Albus left the kitchen with his broomstick. He half-hoped James would come out of the house as well to say he had been kidding, but he didn't.

…

Albus had been hoping James wasn't as serious as he seemed about them not being friends, but apparently he was. He actually talked to Al even less than before at school, not even doing so during quidditch practice. Albus sometimes tried to stop him in the corridors to talk to him but James and Fred were always in a hurry. They were rarely seen apart from each other –some teachers compared them to the legendary Weasley twins-, and they spent long hours in Filch's office.

"That was horrible." Rose claimed as they walked back into the castle. It was a cold Thursday evening and they had just had a Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid, and had stayed a little longer after to talk to him.

"It wasn't a bad class." Albus replied, trying to walk as fast as possible to get away from the cold.

"No, it wasn't a bad class. It's just that it was so cold, I could hardly concentrate." Rose explained. They reached the entrance and walked into the Great Hall immediately. They walked across the room and sat at the Gryffindor table, opposite from a dirty-blonde haired boy and a black girl, who were talking excitedly.

"What took you so long?" the girl asked, smiling. The blonde boy smiled a little at them.

"We were talking to Hagrid." Albus explained. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Hogsmeade. Lysander was just telling me all about it." The girl answered.

"Yeah, when you guys got here I was telling Annie about Honeydukes…"

"Oh yeah, I can't wait until I go to Honeydukes. Remember when grandma Molly took us there when we were little?" Rose asked Albus.

"Yeah, that was quite an adventure."

"What happened?" Lysander asked, not looking really interested.

"Fred dropped a handful of some round sweets at James' feet and he fell on top of a counter full of stuff and made quite a mess. Grandma Molly was furious." Rose explained. Annie laughed at the story, and Lysander looked slightly amused, which was a big change from his usual face expression.

"I wish I had a big wizarding family." Annie commented. "My muggle cousins aren't very exciting, and I just have one wizard cousin and we don't get along very well."

"Pamela is really nice." Lysander commented casually. "I wish I had cousins."

"Trust me, it does get old after a while." Rose said, laughing. "Right, Al?"

"Yeah, most of the time they pretend you don't exist." As he said this, Fred and James walked past them and left the Great Hall. "See?"

"My older brother ignores me like that, too." Annie said.

"And I ignore Hugo like that as well." Rose added, smiling. "So it's nothing to feel bad about."

Albus nodded and started eating before his shepherd's pie would get cold. Annie and Rose were talking about Hogsmeade all way through dinner, with Lysander's occasional remarks about certain places. After a while, he was the only one who had finished.

"I'll go return these books to the library before it closes for the night." Albus told them pointing at his school bag, and left without saying anything else. He was on the fourth floor corridor walking towards the library when he saw a familiar red head running past him. "Hugo? What are you doing here?"

The boy didn't seem to hear him and disappeared from sight. Albus kept on walking quietly, wondering what Hugo was doing there. He got to the library and walked in. He returned the books and was planning on leaving when he heard the very familiar voice of his brother.

"Hugo, you're a genius."

Albus turned around and saw his brother sitting at one of the tables along with Fred and Hugo, the last one carrying what looked like one of the books they were requested in their first year. Albus hid behind a bookshelf close to them, not quite able to restrain his natural curiosity.

"I wish I could see Professor Vaughn's face when you put this in his office... my dad says this is one of his best inventions. He and Uncle Fred used it on a whole corridor in their seventh year." Fred laughed as he said that. James looked over his shoulder to see if the librarian was listening to them.

"I'd never thought of camouflaging it as a Hogwarts book…" he commented. The little boy beamed proudly.

"Ravenclaw's brain, you see. So when are we doing it? Saturday?" Hugo said proudly. The two older boys smiled and nodded. Albus moved a little to see if he could see what they were talking about, but dropped a book.

"Who's there?" James asked, taking out his wand. Albus appeared behind the bookshelf, with the book he had just dropped on his hands. "Albus, what the bloody hell are you doing there?"

"Looking for…" he looked at the cover. "Runes dictionary." He realised how lucky he had been of dropping a book of a class he was actually taking.

"Oh, okay." James smiled at him and then looked at Hugo. "Now go away."

Hugo smiled a little and after waving at Albus left the library with his book carefully cradled in his arm.

"What are you guys doing hanging out with Hugo?" Albus asked, not wanting to ask directly about whatever they had been talking about.

"He's a nice kid to have around." Fred shrugged as he said this. Albus frowned.

"You would've never been around me when I was a first-year."

"That's because you were annoying." James wasn't smiling anymore, and was still holding his wand. "And you still are."

Fred laughed and left with James. Albus felt horribly insulted… so they thought he was more annoying than Hugo?!

He slammed the book on the table.

"Young Mr. Potter, I'd appreciate if you don't slam my books like that." Madam Midgen complained. Albus nodded and left the book where he had found it, and left, feeling betrayed by his brother.

_---_

_I decided to split this chapter into two, and I'll post the second part soon. Thanks to RedCloakedMaiden and MinervaEvenstar for the reviews, and to those of you who added my story to Story Alert! :)_

_I know there's a lot of Weasley cousins' stuff going on, but I really needed them to explain better James' reasons for doing things and Albus' attitude. Growing up in a big family... I would know what it is like! lol._

_Please review!_

_-Phankam._


	4. Family and pranks, part II

___**Disclaimer:**__I own Harry Potter... not. J.K. Rowling owns it all._

___---_

_"If I told you you had to hang out with Lily or Hugo at school, would you?"_

_"Of course not! They're way younger than me."_

He thought those words over and over on his way back to the common room. Basically, James had told him he wouldn't hang out with him because he was too much younger than him, but he was being friendly with Hugo who was definitely way younger than both of them. He finished telling Rose what had happened at the library, and waited until she said something wise, as always.

"They're probably just using Hugo for one of their pranks... which I don't approve." Rose looked upset. "I'm the only one _allowed_ to use my little brother for whatever reason."

"I wonder what they're up to..." Albus felt a little sad. If they needed help with a prank, they could've perfectly asked _him_, not _little_ Hugo.

"I'm going to ask mum about pranks that Uncle George and his brother pulled in their last year..." Rose said, and started writing a letter immediately. Albus nodded, and started looking around the common room. James and Fred were the centre of attention between fourth-year Gryffindors. Louis was sitting in a corner, doing homework. It was just then that Albus realised that their older cousin hadn't been participating in their activities lately. He stood up and walked towards the table where the blonde teenager was sitting.

"Hi Louis." He asked. Louis barely moved his head to acknowledge Albus' presence. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

"No." Albus sat right next to his cousin.

"What are you doing?"

"Homework. Fifth-year is horrible." He said, lifting his head for the first time. "I barely have time for anything else. It's just homework, prefect duties and quidditch."

"So that's why you haven't been with James and Fred lately..."

"Yeah, but I don't really miss all that." Louis looked honest. "I'm over the childish misdemeanour."

Albus smiled at him. This year Louis had been made a prefect, so he probably didn't want to get in trouble anyway. He went back to the already long essay he was writing.

"I wonder what they're up to…" Albus commented casually. Louis glanced at him.

"Why?"

"I heard them talking about doing something to Professor Vaughn's office…" Albus said. Louis sat straight again.

"Which one?" there were two Professor Vaughn's at Hogwarts, and they were brothers. One of them taught Defence against the Dark Arts and the other one was the Potions Master.

"I don't know."

"Well... I don't know either, Al. Would you mind?" he pointed at his papers. "I really need to finish this."

Albus nodded and left him working alone. Rose was sealing her letter when Albus sat back at their usual table.

"Which professor Vaughn do you think they were talking about?" Albus asked.

"I don't know..."

"Probably one of them had trouble in class and..."

"Why don't you just ask some of their classmates?" Rose interrupted. "I'm worried that Hugo might get in big trouble..."

"Yeah, me too." Albus lied. He just really wanted to know why they would ask Hugo for help instead than himself.

...

Two days later, Albus was getting ready for going to his first Hogsmeade Saturday ever when he heard laughter in the staircase. He opened the door and saw his brother and Fred laughing, saying something about a swamp. He frowned, and went down the steps as well. The two boys were leaving the common room, and Al sat at one of the armchairs, waiting for Rose to come down.

Both of them then went for breakfast, and between the morning post Rose received a reply from her mother.

"Mum asks why I'm asking... and here's a list of things." She said. "It says something about fireworks... and a _portable swamp_?"

"I heard Fred and James talking about a swamp this morning. Doesn't Uncle George sell that in the joke shop?"

"Yeah, but you know that his products are banned..."

"Hugo was carrying a book and James commented how smart he had been when camouflaging..."

"So they're setting a portable swamp at the office?" Rose interrupted again. Albus hated when she did that, but he didn't say anything about it.

"I guess so..."

They ate in silence for the rest of the breakfast. Albus' mind was looking for a reason James or Fred would want to do that, and why would they want to use Hugo for it. Suddenly, he heard a voice that carried the answer to his problem. He glanced back to the Ravenclaw table.

"Did you hear about James Potter and Fred Weasley getting a 'T' in Potions?" a black haired sixth-year commented.

"How do you even manage to get a T?" a third-year asked, laughing.

"He and Fred Weasley blew up their cauldron on purpose when brewing a shrinking potion and the person sitting next to them got her hands shrunk almost to baby size." the seventeen-year-old explained. "They didn't have a potion to turn in, so they got a T."

"I bet your dad was furious about the accident, Malcolm." A third Ravenclaw commented. Albus recognised her at once: it was his fifth-year cousin Lucy.

"Yeah, he put him and Fred Weasley in detention for a whole week. They won't be able to go to Hogsmeade today." Malcolm explained.

Albus turned to face Rose, who had an understanding look on her face, proving that she had been listening to the conversation as well.

"If they're in detention... who will set the portable swamp?"

"If they're using Hugo for this, I'm killing them." Rose looked really upset. "We're not going to Hogsmeade today, Albus."

...

"Rose, I'm not sure this is a good idea anymore..." Albus said, sitting under his father's invisibility cloak with Rose by her side, right next to the office door. James and Fred were in the next room, serving detention in the Potions classroom. Professor Vaughn had left them alone for a while.

"Are you scared?"

"Of course not." Albus rolled his eyes, but the truth is that he feared getting in trouble more than anything in the world. What would his dad say?

"We'll just stop Hugo and then leave. It's not that hard."

Albus was going to say something but suddenly they heard footsteps approaching. They both stood up and saw Hugo was carrying carefully the book, running towards the office door. He opened it and walked in. Rose and Albus followed.

"Hugo, stop whatever you're doing." Rose exclaimed, taking the invisibility cloak off her and Albus. Hugo dropped the book and turned around.

"Rosie, Al, what are you doing here?" he asked, looking fearful.

"We're here to stop you." She said, frowning visibly. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm..." he glanced back at the book, and then completely turned to stare. "Uh-oh..."

Albus knew that 'uh-oh' didn't mean any good before he realised the supposed-to-be book was leaking something that looked like Stinksap from one of Professor Longbottom's _mimbulus mimbletonias_. Suddenly, the book exploded making a popping noise and Al barely managed to over his face.

"What is going on?!" a very loud voice said. The tall black-haired professor Vaughn had walked in the room, which was now covered from top-to-bottom –Rose, Hugo and Albus included- in the disgusting substance. "Potter, Weasley, Weasley. Explain yourselves!"

Albus was so terrified he didn't manage to say a word. Hugo's face was so red it matched his hair. Rose was moving her mouth, trying to find an explanation.

"Headmistress office, the three of you." The teacher roared. "I'm leaving this as _proof._"

He led Rose, Hugo and Albus out of the room. James and Fred peeked out of the classroom, and James' previous subtle grin disappeared when he saw Albus and Rose.

"You're getting a week… no, a whole month's worth of detention for this." Professor Vaughn said, managing to look even more terrifying than he usually did. Albus didn't manage to say a word. Instead, he looked at his brother with a mix of anger and sadness. This was James' fault after all.

"Professor, what happened?" Fred asked while completely opening the door with such an innocent face that no one would've suspected him of anything. James was expressionless.

"_Of course_." Professor Vaughn was too smart to be fooled. "You two are probably behind this. What is this? Revenge for giving you the grade and detention you deserved?"

James and Fred didn't say a word.

"I guess a week of detention isn't going to be enough."

All five of them followed the Potions Master. James grabbed his brother's arm.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" he whispered.

"Trying to stop Hugo." He confessed. James frowned.

"You idiot. You're in trouble for _nothing_."

"Why would you choose Hugo to do this, anyway?"

"Because he's little and can move faster, and he's smart enough to not get caught." James explained, still in a whisper (which wasn't necessary, because Professor Vaughn was talking to himself and thus not really paying attention to what the five people following him had to say.)

"But why him and n-not…?" Albus couldn't finish. He felt stupid and instead of finishing his question, he kept on walking toward Professor McGonagall's office in silence

...

The next month was the longest Albus had ever experienced. They were forced to serve detention for a month doing muggle work –cleaning the bathrooms, the trophy room and other places without magic- all by themselves, and finally the last day of detention had arrived. That day, Albus had to pickle rats' brains in the dungeons. When he walked in, he was surprised to find James there.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Detention, remember? What are you doing here?"

"Same thing."

They worked in silence for about half an hour, after which James took a break. Albus kept on working, hoping that Professor Vaughn would appear soon saying that they could leave.

"Why did you do that?" James suddenly asked. Albus stopped for a second, but then continued.

"What are you talking about?"

"Why did you want to stop Hugo? Did Rose make you do it?" James asked. Albus simply shook his head. "Then why?"

"I... I'm not sure." Albus frowned. Why had he done that? He stopped for a second to think."I guess it was partly because Rose asked me to but... I-I... d-don't r-really know..."

"You're stuttering." James said and then laughed. "So this is about_ me_?"

"Why do you say that?"

"You _only_ stutter when you want to say something about me." James explained, grinning. Albus blushed and went back to working.

"Yeah…"

"Just tell me, Al."

"I was wondering why you chose Hugo over me to help you." He admitted. James stopped grinning.

"I didn't want to get you into trouble. And anyway, you wouldn't have helped." James said as if it was a fact. Albus stared at him.

"You didn't want me to get in trouble?" he repeated. James nodded. "And why do you think I wouldn't have helped?"

"I don't see why you would want to help me. I mean, we're brothers and everything but you don't like me that much."

Albus mouth felt open. So James thought _he_ didn't like him?

"If you had told me what was going on I might've helped…" Albus said. James smiled a little.

"I'm not so sure about that, you're just _too_ good… but thanks anyway." James looked at the already pickled brains. "I'll help you with that."

He went back to working. They were silent for a while, and James was the one to speak first again.

"Is there any other reason for stopping Hugo? That whole 'you-chose-Hugo-over-me' sounds a little childish, especially for you."

Albus stopped again and stared at his brother. They didn't really look alike: James looked more like a Weasley, except for the black untidy hair, and Albus looked just like his father at his age. He thought about his personal reasons for stopping the prank from happening… was it only his desire of being acknowledged?

"I didn't want you to get into more trouble, I suppose." He finally said. James laughed.

"I'm afraid that there's nothing you can do to stop _me_ from getting into trouble, little brother."

Both of them laughed at that truth, and worked even harder so they would finish sooner.

---

_I actually had fun writing this part… I don't know why I imagine Rose as being pushy like Hermione but also being a little reckless like Ron. And Albus and James… I just like those two too much for my own good. I hope you liked as much as I did! Thanks to those who added this story to their favourites and/or alerts, and to those who took time in reviewing!_

_Also, I wanted to say that if people don't review, I'll just stop updating, because what's the point otherwise? :/_

_-Phankam._


	5. Get over it

**Disclaimer: **_I, Phankam, in no way own Harry Potter or any Harry Potter character for that matter. I just own my ideas and this story, and a few students that appear on this piece._

---

"Where is Professor Vaughn?" James asked Fred, who simply shrugged. "It is not like him to arrive after us to class, especially the first class of the year…"

"Who knows… maybe someone pushed him into the Vanishing Cabinet…" Fred sounded hopeful, and James laughed.

"That would be amazing! I wish it would have been me, though."

"Or me. Taking credit for vanishing Vaughn would've been rather nice." Fred nodded as he said this. Both boys were sitting at their usual table in the Potions classroom. Everyone but the teacher had arrived, so every Gryffindor and Ravenclaw in the room was talking rather happily.

"It's my dad you're talking about." A hoarse voice said from behind them. James turned around and saw Donalbain Vaughn, a fellow Gryffindor and youngest son of the Potions teacher, scowling at them. "And it's none of your business why he is not here."

"You must admit your dad isn't exactly the nicest person." James said, shrugging and ignoring the second part of what he had said. He didn't like Donalbain at all: the skinny black-haired boy was much more of a Slytherin material, not Gryffindor. In fact, all of the Vaughn kids seemed to be sorted into the wrong houses.

"He just dislikes you because you cause trouble in his class." Donalbain stated matter-of-factly.

"Shut it, Vaughn." Fred said, drawing his wand. Donalbain did the same thing, and he looked far more terrifying than Fred. James looked from his cousin to the other boy and remembered that the young Vaughn was one of the best duellers in their year, as seen in the Duel Club that both himself and Fred were part of. James opened his mouth to say something.

"Weasley, Vaughn, lower your wands. Ten points from Gryffindor." Silence fell upon the classroom as Professor McGonagall walked in the classroom, accompanied by a man with a walrus-like moustache that almost caused James to start laughing. The man actually _looked_ a lot like a walrus. "Professor Vaughn had to attend an urgent call from his native country and he won't be able to teach for at least a few months."

There were a few people who looked as happy as James and Fred, and a few who looked a little sad because not everyone disliked professor Vaughn as the cousins did.

"Professor Slughorn retired a while ago, but he has agreed to teach this class until professor Vaughn can come back."

James' smile faltered a little. He didn't think that man was actually capable of brewing anything, and he looked a little frail and very old.

"I'm sure you'll behave in his class." She seemed to glance at James and Fred, who smiled trying to feign innocence. She gave a piece of parchment to the new teacher and turned around. "Good-bye."

No one dared to interrupt the silent atmosphere that the arrival of the Headmistress. Professor Slughorn walked towards the front of the classroom and smiled at the class.

"I'm Professor Horace Slughorn, and I'll be glad to teach you until Professor Vaughn is back." He smiled at the class and his eyes travelled fast through the fifth-years. His eyes stopped on Fred's red hair and smiled widely. "Weasley, I suppose?" he asked, smiling at the boy. Fred nodded. "I had the pleasure of teaching young Ronald Weasley when he was a sixth-year... his son, I suppose?"

"No, that's our Uncle Ron." Fred said, emphasizing the 'us' by pointing at both him and James. Slughorn's eyes widened when he looked at the boy, and then looked down at the parchment he was holding.

"James Potter, I suppose?" he asked, looking up at the black-haired boy, who barely managed to smile and nod out of utter confusion. "Oh my! I actually had the pleasure of teaching your grandparents and your dad."

"Probably my mum, too." James said, shrugging.

Slughorn seemed to be thinking James' words over.

"Ginny Weasley, I'm assuming. I taught her during her OWL year. A pretty nice hexing work, if I remember clearly. She played for the Holyhead Harpies, didn't she?

James nodded, not understanding why the teacher was acting like that: he wasn't used to a teacher talking directly at him if it wasn't because he was in trouble.

"Oh, I remember how I introduced her to Gwenog Jones... she was the captain back then, you know!" Slughorn seemed pretty self-satisfied. He finally walked over to the front of the class. James glanced sideways at Fred, who merely shrugged; neither knew what was wrong with that strange walrus-like man. "Well, well... this is OWL year for you." The professor finally seemed to realise that there were eighteen other people in the classroom. "And I'm sure you've heard how hard this is going to be."

James grunted: maybe the man was a little odd in some ways, but that single statement had just put him in the 'regular and annoying teacher' category. James had heard about how horribly hard this year was going to be from so many people it was starting to get old, and utterly nerve-wrecking.

---

"I'm sick of Slughorn." Albus stated as he sat on one of the many chairs in the common room. "I swear that if I heard him saying 'Oh, just like your father!' I'm going to puke."

"If you're puking try to do it away from me." Rose mumbled as she wrote a letter to her mother.

"Do you ever stop writing letters?"

"Do you ever stop being annoying?" Rose snapped back, scowling.

Al decided that it was better not to bother Rose until she finished writing. When she was finally done, she opened her mouth to say something but Annie Thomas interrupted by sitting right next to Al.

"Lysander gets on my nerves." She said. Albus raised an eyebrow.

"He gets on everyone's nerves." Albus stated.

"He's just so..." Annie didn't seem to find the appropriate word to describe the blonde.

"Distant?" Rose tried to help. Annie nodded. "His mum is just like that."

Annie sighed.

"What happened now?" Rose finally asked, moving so she was sitting closer to Annie as well.

Albus stood up before any of the girls said anything: this sounded a lot like one of those girl conversations that he would rather not be a part of. He walked across the common room and saw James sitting all by himself in a table, writing.

"James, what are you doing?" Albus asked, sitting next to his brother.

"Homework. I swear Teddy wants to kill me: that's why he keeps on sending so much bloody Transfiguration assignments." James looked mad. When Teddy had started teaching the year before, they had thought the young metamorphmagus would go easy on them, but it had proven to be the complete opposite. "OWL year sucks. Enjoy fourth-year while it lasts."

"Uhm... okay." Albus glanced at James' paper and saw an obvious mistake –Albus was better than James at transfiguration and had read a lot of theory- "Mind if I take a shifty?" he asked. James grunted and gave him the paper.

"I hate transfiguration." James mumbled, shaking his head. "And I still have to write a foot-long essay on why Muggles need the tin-ner-net—"

"Internet." Albus corrected.

"Whatever. And I also have to write an essay for History of Magic, which is supposed to be twenty-inches-long!" James sounded angry. Albus scratched a couple things in James' paper and wrote some others, and gave it back to him. "Thanks Al."

"No problem. Now you owe me... I could use some help with Potions..." James laughed as Albus said that.

"I will help as soon as I find time. And why do you even need to work for Potions? I thought Old Sluggy would simply let you get O's like he does with me."

"He doesn't do that. You're just better at Potions than I am." Albus said, sighing. He was happy to get at least an A on his potions assignments.

"Yeah well. Maybe I am." James grinned, and then looked back at his papers. "I must finish this, Al."

"Okay." Albus stayed there for a second. "If you need any more help to study for your Transfiguration OWL just tell me."

"Thanks Al. I could also use a hand for Ancient Runes, those get on my nerves." James looked thoughtful. "I keep on mistranslating certain words... you know, like _ehwaz_, I always mistranslate it into partnership instead of defence..."

"It means partnership." Albus said, raising an eyebrow. James frowned. "Defence is _eihwaz_."

"Whatever." He looked down at his essay. "Thanks. Now I really need to finish this."

"Sure." Albus nodded and left his brother so he could keep on working on his homework, feeling slightly good about James accepting his help. He didn't not whether his brother was starting to like him better, or if he thought of Albus as an equal now, or if he was simply desperate for help. He went back to his original table, where Rose was sitting by herself again. "Hello."

"Hi. Were you talking to James?" Rose stated the obvious: she could easily see James' table from where she was sitting. Albus nodded. "He seems friendlier towards you."

"We do get along better this year." Albus admitted. "I think he's more mature, or something."

"James? Mature? That sounds like to opposite words." Rose commented.

"Yeah." Albus laughed. "You know, I think we've both grown up. And we talk and he doesn't ignore me anymore."

"I guess that's a nice thing." Rose shrugged. In that moment, their cousin Louis walked into the common room, looking very happy. He went towards their table.

"Al, we'll have Quidditch practice tomorrow at nine in the morning." He announced. Al was going to open his mouth to protest, but Louis didn't let him. "No buts."

He left before Albus was able to articulate a coherent response.

"Louis is probably the worst Quidditch captain we'll ever have." Albus mumbled.

"It can't be that bad... I mean, you should be used to have him bossing you around... he does so all the time at The Burrow."

"Shut it, Rose."

---

"Albus, m'boy!" Slughorn exclaimed when Albus walked into the classroom. The boy doubted for a second if he had done something to get him in trouble, but then noticed the professor's wide smile. "And Miss Weasley!"

Rose frowned when she noticed the difference between how she got treated and how Albus did.

"Seeing that Christmas vacation is approaching, I decided to have a little party in my office this Friday night, starting at 8." Slughorn smiled at both of them. "And you're both invited. You can bring a guest along if you want to."

"Thank you for the invite, Professor." Albus said, not quite sure if he was thankful or not: he definitely hadn't enjoyed any of Slughorn's little reunions at all. Slughorn smiled at both of them and made his way to the front of the classroom, and he bent over the first desk to say something to Lysander.

"He's probably inviting him, too." Rose said, shrugging. She sat with Albus at one of the empty desks and began putting her things together to start the class.

Later that day, as they both walked into the common room, the first person they saw was James sitting on one of the armchairs talking to Fred and Louis, which was usual. The unusual thing was when Fred waved at them and gestured for them to come.

"Did you get invited to Sluggy's party?" James asked, grinning. Albus and Rose nodded. "We did too."

"Are you going?" Albus sounded astonished. He didn't think that James would be up for one of the professor's gatherings.

"Of course." James glanced sideways. Albus followed his brother's eyes and saw two girls talking.

"Oh, I get it." Albus laughed. "We'll see you there, then."

Both Rose and Albus turned to leave, but Louis called.

"Wait a second Al, we need to ask you something." He said. Rose looked slightly annoyed as Louis seemed to sound like she had to leave. She left, scowling at her older cousins and Al. "Who are you taking to the party?"

"I don't know." Albus said, shrugging. He hadn't even thought about it.

"You better decide soon, before all the good ones get picked." Fred joked. Albus nodded and left.

And he also thought about what Fred had said. He looked around the room and his eyes fell on the two girls James had been glancing at: Abby Rowe and Leah Bartalotti. They were muggleborn, and fourth-years like Albus, and they were rarely seen apart from each other –they were best friends since before they started at Hogwarts- , and they were both very pretty. Albus sat next to Rose.

"What did they want?" she asked, annoyed.

"They wanted to know who I am taking to the party." He said, shrugging. Rose smirked. "_What?_"

"I just can't imagine you asking a girl out..."

"Why?"

"You're just so shy." Rose shrugged.

"Who says so?"

"I do."

Albus sighed.

"You're right, who am I trying to kid?" he shook his head. "I better hurry up either way... I don't want all the good ones to get invited before I make up my mind..."

"The good ones, huh?" He didn't understand why Rose stood up, glared at him and left.

After all, he was part Weasley and he could not help it.

He sighed, and stood up, walking to where Leah and Abby were sitting, trying to decide which one of them was he going to take: he just didn't want to go alone.

---

The following morning during breakfast was a bad moment for Albus. He was sitting by Rose, who was still slightly annoyed at him, and on his other side was Annie, who was wondering about how much more clueless Lysander could get.

That wasn't actually as bad as what happened next. He had just finished eating his porridge and was about to drink a bit of pumpkin juice when someone grabbed his shoulder very hard.

"What?!" he turned around in alarm, holding his wand. He relaxed a bit when he realised it was his brother, but then tensed when he noticed that James looked far from happy.

"Why did you invite her?!" James asked in a whisper, looking absolutely mad. Albus wondered what the bloody hell was James talking about. James made him leave the breakfast table and dragged him to the Entrance Hall, attracting the looks from many students sitting close-by.

"What are you talking about?" Albus asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You invited Leah to the bloody party." James looked even angrier. Albus still looked clueless. "I told you I wanted to take her."

"No you didn't." Albus replied, feeling his limbs relax once again.

"I looked at them and you looked as if you had understood!"

"I thought you wanted to invite Abby, she's more of your..."

"No, she's not! Why would I want to invite someone so loud and obnovious?!" Albus was going to say something like 'Because that's just like you' but refrained from doing so. "Besides, Fred invited her."

Albus was going to say something, but James left before he could do so. He sighed, and suddenly lost balance and fell, his legs acting very weird, almost jelly-like...

He had just been jinxed!

He looked up from the floor to find whoever had done it and saw that his brother was leaving, still holding his wand.

---

He received the counter-jinx from Rose and both of them made their way to the Charms classroom. Albus was very upset but still didn't tell Rose what had happened or who had jinxed him, but he was sure she knew: she was just the kind of person who seemed to be able to read your mind.

"Today we'll continue with the Summoning Charm. And please, Mr. Scamander, try not to summon me again." Professor Flitwick said, looking at the mentioned blonde boy, who didn't realise he was being talked to. His twin brother, a Ravenclaw, sitting next to him elbowed him. Lysander barely seemed to notice, making a couple people laugh.

Ten minutes into the class, Albus was getting scared he might get hit with some of the objects being summoned: Professor Flitwick had them practising with small, harmless objects, but every time that Lysander summoned something, it seemed as if the heaviest things in the front of the classroom were attracted towards the dreamy-looking boy.

"Scamander! Please pay attention to what you're aiming at!" Flitwick exclaimed in his squeaky voice as a heavy book from his desk was summoned and nearly hit Scorpius Malfoy in the face.

"Are you telling me who jinxed you or will I have to use Veritaserum? _Accio._" Rose asked as she successfully summoned a small pillow.

"You don't have Veritaserum." Albus mumbled. "_Accio_."

A small book flew towards him, but he didn't look pleased.

"I was aiming at the stupid white quill." He muttered.

"Who jinxed you?" Rose insisted, making Albus grunt.

"Okay, I'll tell you." He hated how insistent the red-haired could be. Rose smiled triumphantly. "James did." Rose's smile disappeared.

"Why would he jinx you? I know you're not exactly best friends but…"

"He got mad because I invited the girl he wanted to invite to the stupid party."

Rose's mouth was slightly open.

"Who did you invite?" she asked, looking a little upset. "You could've asked my opinion before, you know…"

"Leah. She's nice to be around." Albus shrugged. He didn't actually fancy the girl or anything of the sort, he just wanted to go with someone that he could hold a mildly-interesting conversation with. He looked to his left, where Leah and her friend were having some trouble summoning. When Leah noticed that Albus was staring, she waved at him. Al barely managed to smile and turned back to Rose.

"I guess it's okay." Rose looked thoughtful. "I never thought Leah was James' kind of girl, though…"

"Yeah, me neither." Albus didn't know what else to say, so instead he tried summoning something else. He looked around the room and decided to summon a pillow that had fallen half-way while being summoned by Harry Lane, a fellow Gryffindor. "_Accio!_"

He got upset when instead of having the pillow fly over to him he summoned one of Scorpius' books from his book bag. The blonde haired boy turned around.

"That's mine, Albus." He said, smiling a little. "_Accio."_ Nothing happened, and Scorpius' face was slightly pink as he stood up and walked towards their desk to retrieve his book. "Summoning isn't my thing." He admitted. Rose laughed.

"Are you going to Slughorn's party?" Rose asked as Albus put the book on Malfoy's hands.

"No, I wasn't invited." Scorpius shrugged. "I told Father about Professor Slughorn, and he said that he wasn't one of his favourites, so I guess I am not either."

"You could come with me." Albus thought his ears were deceiving him, so he shot a questioning glance at Rose, who ignored him and had indeed said what Al thought he had heard. "Would you like to?"

"Sure, that'd be great." Scorpius smiled. Albus thought he was a nice kid, but he wasn't so sure if he liked to have him around his cousin.

"I'll meet you at the Entrance Hall at 7:30." Rose said. Scorpius nodded and went back to his seat. Rose realised Albus was staring at her. "_What_?"

"You just asked Scorpius Malfoy out." Albus said, wondering if the girl hadn't noticed herself.

"Yes. He's way nicer than any of the other baboons we have as classmates." She shrugged.

"If your dad finds out he'll—"

"He won't find out." Rose said, using a look that if he hadn't known it to be impossible, it would've scared the magic out of him. "And if he does find out... I've learnt a pretty nice Bat-Bogey Hex from your mum."

Albus nodded. He actually knew the spell himself but wasn't very good at it: among the cousins, the one that seemed to have mastered the hex was Dominique, who used it on Louis, James or Fred on occasion.

"So... Leah, huh?" Rose grinned. "Didn't know you fancied her."

"I don't." Albus said, frowning. "And please don't go around saying that... James is angry enough already."

"Stop worrying about James. He'll get over it... eventually."

Albus was in the process of thinking of a good comeback when a huge book slammed him on the face: it was once again the result of Lysander's dangerous summoning abilities.

"Scamander! Detention on Friday night!" It was strange to see Flitwick angry at anyone, but Lysander managed to get the worst of him all the time.

---

Albus wasn't surprised that almost every member of his family currently attending Hogwarts was there, plus some adults that Albus knew personally because they were his parents' friends. Teddy Lupin was also there, wearing dark blue dress robes that matched his dark blue hair, and he looked rather bored. He saw Louis talking to a pretty Hufflepuff girl that Albus recognised as professor Longbottom's sixth-year daughter Alicia, and Fred seemed to be telling some kind of joke because both he and Abby were laughing.

He couldn't see James anywhere though.

He had been talking to Leah for most of the party, and she proved himself right: she was indeed very nice to have around and seemed to have a lot of sensible things to say, much like his cousin Rose. This made Albus wonder even more why James fancied her, since it didn't sound at all like someone he would want to hang out with.

"Albus! M'boy! Let me introduce you to my dear friend..." Albus wasn't really listening: he was still looking for his brother.

"Nice to meet you, sir." Albus mumbled as he spotted his brother's black hair sitting on a corner. "Excuse me."

He walked towards James, feeling increasingly guilty. Obviously James hadn't invited anyone else to the party for he was sitting all by himself.

"Hi James." Albus muttered and sat next to him. "How are you?"

He regretted his choice of words immediately when James glared at him.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know you liked Leah." Albus said, tilting his head slightly.

"Okay." James didn't seem to be about to forgive him. Albus sighed and started thinking of what he could do to...

"Oh, here you are Al." He looked up to Leah, who had just arrived. James was also looking –actually, _staring_- at her. "Hello James."

"Hi." James said, smiling a little. Leah sat between them.

"Did you see that person over there? He's a real vampire." Leah commented. Albus wasn't interested at all, but James seemed to be thinking of something.

"There's a pretty good joke about a vampire, a werewolf and a muggle..." James commented, and Leah looked at him, looking half-interested.

"I'll go find Rosie." Albus said, and stood up. He was glad to notice that Leah didn't follow him and that she was laughing at James' joke.

Instead of looking for Rosie, he sat next to Annie Thomas, who looked really upset.

"What's wrong, Annie?" Albus asked. The girl merely grunted in response. "Are you still mad at Lysander?"

"He's just so _oblivious_ and _stupid_. Can you believe that in the end his brother asked me to the party to have me and Lys together somehow and then Lysander managed to land himself on detention!" she said all that very quickly. Albus nodded, wondering what was he thinking when he decided to sit next to her, for he had to spend most of the party hearing her complain about Lysander and his unawareness of his surroundings.

---

Five weeks later, Al was sitting in the common room drinking butterbeer. The golden snitch he had caught not so long ago was flying all over the room but no one cared much: they were rather busy celebrating Gryffindor's win against Hufflepuff. Albus had chosen to sit very close to the stairs that lead to the boys' dormitories just in case he needed to disappear fast (there had been times in which the Gryffindors got so excited they would not let Al go to bed in peace). He also had his invisibility cloak in his bag, just in case things got _too_ bad.

"Nice catch, Potter!" a seventh year whose name he didn't know said as he walked towards the stairs. Albus thanked him and looked around. His eyes fell on Fred, who was walking straight towards him.

"Hey Al." Fred mumbled, sitting next to him. "Have you seen your brother?"

"Not since the game." Albus answered. Fred then pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. Albus looked over that way but didn't see anything. "What?"

"It seems like someone declared a snogging war over there." Fred explained, turning around. Albus glanced once again and caught sight of his brother and Leah. "I know, it is rather disturbing to watch."

"What about Abby?" Albus asked, deciding he definitely wouldn't be as open about a relationship if he ever got involved in one: there must be lots of secret passageways in Hogwarts, and he would definitely choose one of those.

"She's barking mad, mate." Fred said, rolling his eyes. "Where's Rosie?"

"I don't know. She went to the game with Scorpius..." Albus wished he hadn't said that. Fred's eyes widened.

"Is little Rosie dating a _Malfoy_?" he asked, sounding between amused and worried. Albus nodded, knowing that it was of no use to lie to Fred, who would probably find out through other means anyway. "Wow. That's a nice story to tell during Easter dinner..."

Al was going to say something against that but before he did so James appeared and sat by them.

"Hey guys." He looked happy.

"Is your snogfest over already?" Fred inquired with a smirk. James rolled his eyes.

"You just wish you were me." He said. Fred laughed and stood up.

"Just watch and learn, mate." He said, and after taking a look around the room, left.

"I'm happy about you and Leah." Albus said, smiling at his older brother.

"Thanks, kid." James smiled sheepishly. "I actually wanted to thank you... if you hadn't come over to me during Sluggy's party, I would've never actually talked to her or invited her to go to Hogsmeade with me..."

"It's okay." Albus shrugged. James' smile faltered but didn't disappear. Albus felt a little uneasy because he wasn't used to James being open to him.

"I also wanted to apologize for jinxing you." he said. "That wasn't very nice of me."

"I'm used to you not being nice." Al tried to joke, rolling his eyes. James laughed.

"Yeah, you're right. Well, I'm an older brother; that's what I do."

They were both silent for a while. Albus stood up to leave as Leah approached.

"Hey Al, wait." James said. Albus stopped himself, and Leah sat right next to James.

"What?" Al smiled a little at both of them, hoping that he could get away from them without having to witness anything that would traumatise him for life.

"Would you mind helping me with my runes tomorrow?" James asked in a low voice, smiling shyly.

"Sure." Albus shrugged, and turned around to leave. He was going up the stairs that lead to the boys' dormitories when he heard James' voice saying his name. Once again curiosity overpowered him, so he threw the invisibility cloak over himself and went back down quietly.

"I'm glad Al's my brother, I don't think I could survive OWLs year without him."

Albus Severus smiled in a self-satisfied way for the first time in what seemed like years, and he made his way up the stairs to find some quietness.

---

_Rather long chapter... I liked it a lot though. I hope you like it too! My first thought was to split it, but I didn't want to interrupt it anywhere, so I just decided to post the whole thing. Thanks to those who took time in reading and to madie8 and __Death-to-the-tadpoleclowns_ _for reviewing. Please review, because feedback does seriously encourage me to write more!_

_-Phankam_

_PS: I really liked the idea of Teddy teaching at Hogwarts, so I thought 'heck, why not?!', so he's now the coolest transfiguration teacher Hogwarts' ever had. :D_


	6. Who's to blame?

**Disclaimer: **_As much as I wish I owned James and Albus Potter, I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't own anything in the HP universe, J.K. Rowling owns it. I just own my little OCs and this story._

* * *

"I-can't-concentrate." Rose said with gritted teeth, glaring over her shoulder. Albus remained quiet: he did not want to infuriate her cousin even more by making comments. "Honestly, how selfish can someone get? Last year he was all about _yelling_ at people to shut them up so he could study, and look at him now! Joking and laughing and being loud and obnoxious..."

Albus simply let her rant, although he was a little annoyed himself: his brother seriously seemed to be making up for all the silence he went through to study for his OWLs the previous year. Yes, Albus was annoyed. But what could he do about it, anyway?

"At least he could be silent to let Leah study..." Rose kept on ranting, seeing that Al was not about to interrupt her. "Or Leah should keep him busy... the only times he is not being a clown is when he's snogging ..."

Albus simply nodded, knowing that it was best not to contradict Rose, and kept on writing his essay on _Confusing and Befuddlement Draught_ for Professor Vaughn, which was proving to be a little more research than what he was willing to do at the moment. Instead of continuing, he went back to his Ancient Runes homework, which he had left aside thirty-minutes before after finding a particularly tricky phrase he was having trouble translating. Rose's voice wasn't helping his concentration much.

"...and he's being such an _idiot_, I can't believe he got 9 OWLs..."

Albus frowned at a word he thought knew the meaning...

"... and he got an Outstanding in Potions! That's just so strange for someone as stupid as him..."

What was the meaning of the stupid word? He _knew _it. He wouldn't look it up in his dictionary...

"... I'm so glad he failed at least one! But four Exceeds-Expectations are incredible for someone like him too..."

He was half-listening to Rose, and half-paying attention to the paper. His fingers were extended towards the heavy runes book, but his brain hadn't quite given up on thinking...

"... I'm surprised Fred isn't next to him being just as obnoxious...! Even Fred is behaving..."

Albus tapped his finger impatiently on the table, hoping she would just shut up about James.

"... And no one says anything and—"

"Rose, shut up." Albus finally let his thoughts be heard, opening the book and looking for the word. "There's nothing we can do about it. Now if you let me try to think this over—"

"Albus! You _can_ do something about it!" Rose sounded very pleased with herself. "Actually, both of us can do something!"

Albus lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at his cousin.

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" he usually wasn't rude to Rose, but she had been getting on his nerves. Rose didn't seem at all offended by Albus' question. She simply smiled and pointed towards her robes' chest, where a shiny red-and-gold badge was shimmering with the fire light. "Oh no. I'm not telling him to stop."

"We're prefects! We can do it if we want to!"

"He is just being himself. We can't just go around telling people off because we can't study!" Albus shook his head energetically while saying that. He would go tell his brother off the day hell froze over, and that was a fact for him.

"Come on! Your mum told you to keep him under control..."

"I'm not doing it. If you think it is necessary, then do it yourself."

"Albus..."

"No."

Rose sighed and stood up. Albus figured she had gone to tell James to shut it for good, so he went back to his work.

He never expected he would be made prefect, but now that he thought about it, it kind of made sense... if they definitely had to have a boy prefect among the fifth-year Gryffindors, it wasn't like any of the other boys would've been good for the responsibility. For Al it was actually entertaining to imagine Lysander being prefect. It was also funny to imagine either Fabian or Caleb, since both of them were usually in detention and only James and Fred caused more trouble than them. Danny Finnigan was a nice boy, but he probably wouldn't have the guts to stand up to anyone and Harry Lane was probably the worst student in their year. So in a strange way it felt to Albus Severus Potter that he was actually chosen because he was the least bad prefect they could've chosen.

"Louis will tell him off." Rose said proudly, sitting back into her chair.

"Were you afraid of telling James to stop being himself?" Albus teased, smirking. Rose scowled.

"Of course not! I just thought he would listen to Louis more than he would listen to me, since Louis is older and all that..."

"James only behaves when mum tells him to, so there's no use..." Albus realised that Rose's expression had changed. "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing." Rose quickly lied. Al's mouth opened a little.

"Tell me. You're planning something. You have _that_ look in your face."

"Albus, if I say it is nothing then it is nothing." Rose looked at her wristwatch. "I'll be downstairs; I need to talk to Roxie."

She stood up and left Albus still wondering what was going on in the red-haired girl's mind.

* * *

Albus was walking towards his next class –Transfiguration- when suddenly someone grabbed his arm and made him turn around. It was James, and he looked upset.

"Al! I can't believe you wrote a letter to mum!" he muttered, frowning visibly. Al raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't write to mum. What are you talking about?"

"She sent me a very long, detailed and descriptive letter of what she would do if I didn't stop being '_annoying_' and '_loud_' while you studied for your OWLs! What was that about?! If you had a problem you could've as well..."

"James, wait. I didn't write to mum." James studied his younger brother's face –they were almost the same height, James being a little taller-, and then nodded.

"Then I'm going to _kill_ Louis for doing it. He was the one telling me to shut it the other day because he was working for his NEWTs and whatnot..." he grumbled a little. "He's been so bloody annoying lately..."

"You do that. I'm late for Teddy's class." Al said, freeing his arm from James' grasp and then running towards the last classroom in the corridor. Everyone was already there, and he took seat next to Rose, who raised an eyebrow at him.

"You're late." Teddy pointed out as he gave out snails to the class. Some of the girls eyed the invertebrate with disgust in their eyes, and some boys –especially Fabian and Caleb- seemed to be thinking of a way to use the small animals as a joke.

"I'm sorry Ted—Professor Lupin." Al said, smiling a little. Teddy smiled back and gave him a snail, and after he was finished he went to the front of the class.

"We'll be working on Vanishing Spells, which as you may know it is amongst the hardest OWL material..."

Albus was having trouble paying attention to Teddy's words because he was thinking over what James had accused him of... he wasn't so sure Louis would actually write their mum, it just didn't make sense...

"Rose." He said out loud. Teddy stopped talking and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" he asked. Al felt his cheeks burning as some of the people in the class turned around and smiled stupidly at him.

"Nothing... sir." He said, looking down. Teddy decided to ignore what had happened and kept on talking about the vanishing of different things, from inanimate objects to vertebrate animals.

Albus was startled when several people started saying a certain incantation.

"What was that about? You said my name." Rose asked while pointing her wand towards the snail. "_Evanesco._" Nothing happened.

"You wrote a letter to my mum to make James behave." It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

"Maybe." Rose looked too much into making her spell work, so Albus thought it wouldn't be a good idea to distract her... maybe if he did he would end up vanishing instead of her snail.

"We'll talk about it later." He said, frowning. He pointed his wand at his runaway snail. "_Evanesco_."

"Good job Albus! Vanished it on the first try? 10 points for Gryffindor." Teddy said as he walked right past Al, who smiled proudly.

"No, we won't. I didn't to it Albus." Rose said, rolling her eyes. "_Evanesco_."

"Who else would've done it?"

"I don't know. _Evanesco. Evanesco. EVANESCO_!" Nothing happened. "Ugh, this is so bloody frustrating! Give me a hand, Albus. Let me see how you do it."

"I won't until you admit you wrote the letter."

"Fine." Rose stood up, picking up all of her things and sat down next to Danny Finnigan, who smiled brightly at her. Albus grunted and had the snail that Rose had left behind vanish.

* * *

Albus was still very upset because of his argument with Rose –they rarely fought over anything-, but he noticed the unusual quietness in the common room as soon as he walked in, and realised that that was not normal. He looked around and found his brother writing in a piece of parchment with a frown upon his face.

"Hey James." He said, wondering if the older Potter was still wrongly angry at Louis. "What are you doing?"

"Homework... sixth-year is a lot of work." He sighed. "But I think I can finish this and then do something else..."

"If it is so much work, then why were you slacking all week long?"

"I was procrastinating... not a very good idea when the homework pile grows faster than expected." James glared at the long parchment in front of him, hoping it would suddenly vanish.

"Yeah, you've heard aunt Hermione's stories about uncle Ron and dad in their sixth year..."

"I always thought she was exaggerating... girls tend to do that." James said, glaring sideways. Albus followed his eyes and saw that Leah was glaring back at them.

"Uhm... why does Leah seem ready to kill?" Al asked, turning to face his brother again.

"Someone told her I was flirting with this Ravenclaw girl in your year." James rolled his eyes. "I was just helping her; her bag had just ripped open so I helped her picking her things up and then simply smiled, I was just being polite."

"Did you tell Leah that?"

"Yeah. She tried to hex me... good thing I'm rather good at nonverbal spells already." James grinned. "Do you want to see?"

"Sure..." Albus felt a little unsure as James pulled his wand out and pointed to Louis, who was carrying a big pile of books towards a table were other seventh-years were sitting. At a flick of James' wand, Louis tripped spectacularly.

"Trip jinx. One of my specialties." James blew on the tip of his wand as he had seen in a muggle movie, and then hid the wand before Louis noticed it was his cousin who had jinxed him.

"You used that one on Goyle on my first year..." Albus remembered. James frowned.

"How do you even remember that? You're supposed to forget about it and save me the embarrassment."

"It just happens to be one of my favourite memories." Albus chuckled as he said this. "I'll never forget Nott's face when you used the jelly-legs jinx..."

"That's my other specialty, and I'm sure you don't want to see me try it on you." James was smiling as he said this, but his smile faltered when his brother didn't look as happy as him. "You know I don't mean it."

"Oh, I know, it's not that."

"What's upsetting you?" James asked, sitting straighter. "Do you have girl trouble? I can give you a hand..."

"I just argued with Rose." Al explained, wishing he hadn't said that. He didn't want to see James jinxing their cousin.

"Whose fault?" James asked.

"Hers." Albus didn't even think about the answer.

"Then she'll get over it eventually. You're lucky she's our cousin..." James chuckled. "You know, you can choose friends but you can't choose family."

"Yeah... you're right." Albus eyed the huge pile of homework in front of James "I'll let you keep on working so you finish before Quidditch practice tonight." Albus said, and after seeing James' nod he went to sit down next to Lysander, who was scribbling into a piece of parchment. "What is that?"

"Flitwick sent me an extra assignment... I don't know why." Lysander looked down at his parchment, looking absolutely clueless. Albus felt a smile come to his face.

"Maybe it has something to do with you soaking half the class using _aguamenti_..."

"Oh... yeah, maybe..." Lysander looked surprised at Albus' revelation. "You might be right. I sometimes don't manage to control my magic."

"I've noticed..." Albus muttered, remembering how he had been badly hit in the nose by one of Lysander's attempts of summoning a book.

"Can you help me?" the blonde was smiling a little. "You're good at Charms..."

"Sure... I can do that."

Albus was having a hard time making Lysander concentrate in his essay and then wand practice, and even more when Rose sat down next to them.

"I can't believe James is so quiet and working." Rose smiled brightly. "Things are going nicer than expected."

"So you wrote the letter." Albus said, scowling. "James thinks it was Louis."

"Maybe it was Louis." Rose shrugged as she said this. "What are you working at?"

"Don't change the subject!" Albus was angry. "James jinxed Louis in some sort of revenge and it will definitely cause trouble in our quidditch team! Just say you wrote the bloody letter, Rose."

"I didn't write that stupid letter!" Rose snarled. "And why does everything have to start and end with Quidditch?!" she stood up and left, and Albus didn't even try to stop her. He was sick enough of her already.

* * *

"ALBUS! WAIT FOR ME!" Rose yelled, running behind the black haired boy, who was walking towards the Quidditch pitch with his broomstick over his shoulder. He didn't stop, but she finally managed to catch up with him. "What's your problem?"

"I'm late for practice. I don't want Louis to get all _veela _on me." Rose chuckled at that and kept on running by Albus' side.

"I see that James is behaving now." Rose commented. Albus felt his ears getting hot for he was angry. Why did she keep on with the bloody subject?!

"Of course he is. You wrote a bloody letter to mum after all." Albus said too loudly, thinking that maybe he shouldn't speak like that to Rose.

"I didn't write that letter to your mum." Rose said, jogging to keep up with Al's steady fast walk.

"Who else would do that?" Al snapped, scowling at her. "You were the one complaining and the one who looked positively excited when I said about mum being able to control James..."

"Al. I didn't do it. What makes you think I'd do that?"

"You're always writing letters, and it's just the kind of thing you would do." Al was still frowning visibly. They finally reached the Quidditch stadium. Rose was very quiet.

"You know? Think whatever you want, I don't care." She finally snapped, and as she turned around Albus thought he saw a tear running down her cheek.

"Rose, wait!" he realised too late that he might've been too hard on her without real evidence... but who else could've done that?

"You're late." Louis snarled when Albus walked in the changing room and started changing into his quidditch robes.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled, and looked around the room. James was sitting on a bench cleaning his broomstick's handle.

"We're playing Slytherin in two days, and we all know how important this game is. They're probably the best team besides us, but we've never really lost a game since Al's been Seeker, but that small boy they've got surely knows how to put up a good fight. The thing is that we really need to practice with our new players, since we're more than used to have James chasing." He looked at fourth-year Colin Creevey, who smiled shyly, and Alicia Wood, who clutched her broomstick with a nervous expression. "So, let's go!"

Albus circled the pitch a couple of times, looking around. Most of the practice seemed okay, and he didn't have much trouble getting the snitch, and the only person in the team who seemed a little off was Alicia Wood, who kept on letting goals be scored whenever Al was looking her way.

"Alicia! Remember that when Avery, Krum and Nott come at you, they won't be gentle!" Louis roared, seeming highly annoyed. Albus knew that even though the only _veela_ trait his cousin had was the looks he still seemed to be able to get what Uncle Bill secretly called _veela_-angry."Albus! Get over here!"

Albus flew full speed at where his cousin was.

"What's wrong?" Al asked, looking straight at Louis wondering what had he done wrong.

"Stop looking at the poor girl, you're making her nervous." Louis said, grinning a little. Albus raised an eyebrow but before he could ask what he was talking about the blonde zoomed away on his Nimbus 3000.

The practice came to a stop when Colin was hit by a bludger right in the middle of his face and his nose started bleeding. James and Fred carried him away towards the hospital wing, the former apologising multiple times as the grass under them got a little bloodstained.

"I hope Colin is okay." Alicia mumbled, looking around her. Louis Weasley simply nodded, looking a little angry, and Albus shrugged.

"You should've seen when James' nose broke last year... he kept on playing..." Albus said, smiling at the memory.

"And scored three times with a bleeding nose." Donalbain added, smiling a little as well –which was a very weird expression upon his usually serious face-. "I can still hear Dan Wood screaming at him to keep on flying..."

"How's your brother doing, anyway?" Louis asked. "He's playing with the Tornados, right?"

"No, Puddlemere United like dad." Alicia explained, smiling.

"If I got an early call to play Quidditch, mum wouldn't let me take it." Louis commented, smirking.

"Like _you_ would get an early calling." Donalbain teased. "My cousin got one too."

"Which cousin?" Albus asked, interested. There were a lot of Vaughns in the school and he wasn't sure which ones were siblings with whom.

"Banquo. He's the captain of the Ravenclaw team, he got called to play with the Appleby Arrows, but his dad insisted to wait until he finished school."

"I know Banquo, he's in my Care of Magical Creatures class."

The conversation then moved to the changing room, and Albus was the first one to leave. He was walking back to the castle when he noticed two girls chatting excitedly. He recognised one as Rose, but the other one he wasn't sure who it was.

"Hi Al!" the second girl said, running towards him. He realised it was his little sister and felt a little stupid for not recognising her before. "How was Quidditch?"

"James tried to knock off Colin's teeth." Albus shrugged as he said that since accidents were rather common in Quidditch –he himself had broken his arm twice and his nose at least three times-. "What are you doing here, Lily?"

The thirteen-year-old smiled a little.

"I actually wanted to talk to James. Rose told me how upset you were at her for supposedly writing a letter—"

"I know she wrote the letter." Albus snapped, frowning. Rose glared at him.

"As a matter of fact Albus, Lily here wrote the stupid letter you've been blaming me of writing." Rose said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

"Did you?"

"Yeah."

"Did Rose ask you to?" Albus asked, knowing how harsh he was being towards Rose.

"Why are you being such an idiot?" Rose snapped. "You should be apologising!"

"I'm not apologising." Al wasn't about to give in. "You gave her the idea, didn't you?"

"No, Louis did."

"I did tell Louis but he said there was no way to make James behave, so I left it there." Rose explained.

"You owe Rose an apology." Lily said, smiling a little. Albus felt his face tense. "It is obviously my fault, or Louis'..."

"What is my fault?" the tall blonde boy asked, walking towards them. No one answered.

"Shouldn't we talk about this with James included?" Lily finally asked.

* * *

"I'm sorry I was so mean to you, Rose." Al finally said.

"And I'm sorry I thought it had been you who told my mum, Louis." James added.

"I guess I should be sorry for writing that letter, then." Lily said although she didn't look sorry at all for she was smirking as she talked.

"And I'm the only one who doesn't have anything to apologise for!" Rose said brightly. She felt the scowl from the Potter boys, which made her look down immediately hoping not to upset them again. Louis looked around.

"Sometimes I just wish there weren't so many of us around, it'd be slightly easier." Louis concluded, sighing. The whole Gryffindor-Weasley/Potter clan was sitting in a corner of the common room. Fred and James looked a little ashamed of themselves for once, Lily was smiling slightly while sitting next to a very serious Albus and Rose was beaming as she had heard Fred and James promise they wouldn't be so noisy from then on.

"We're actually lucky none of our parents decided to follow their parents' track." Fred grinned as he said this, causing everyone to laugh. "Can you imagine that each one of us had six other siblings?"

"I have enough with two." James added, laughing.

"At least we're not all in Gryffindor." Al said, frowning at James. "If Hugo, Roxie and Lucy were here..."

"Weasley overload." Rose joked, making Lily giggle. "I could do with Albus in Slytherin though..." Fred and James laughed at that.

"Let's just promise we won't get in each other's way." Albus finally said when they had calmed down, completely ignoring Rose's remark.. "I mean, as James said to me earlier... you can choose friends but you can't choose family."

"It's stupid to fight with your family." James added, this time with a serious tone. "I've been learning that over the past years."

He glanced at Albus and he could've sworn he saw James winking at him.

"So, friends?" Lily finally asked, smiling at everyone present.

"No, Lil. Better than that. Family." Rose said, causing the rest of the Weasleys present to smile.

* * *

_Yay! Another chapter finished! And just two to go =) I loved this chapter. I just had to include the rest of the Weasleys in the row because... well, it usually ends up like that when you have a big nosy family! Lol._

_Thanks once again to madie8 and Death-to-the-tadpoleclowns for their reviews! Which reminds me of reminding you to review!! :D_

_-Phankam._


	7. And he told me to live

**Disclaimer: **_I had a dream in which I owned Harry Potter, but seeing that I also had a dream in which I didn't fail Biostatistics, I figured it was just that, a dream. So yeah, JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, and I'm definitely still failing Biostatistics._

---

"Shut it…" said Albus in a voice not quite so loud. He looked around at the group of people standing in front of him: most of them were younger than him, being the only ones excluded from this category his own brother James, who looked about to start laughing uncontrollably, his cousin Fred, who was casually eyeing the girls around them, and the gloomy-looking youngest son of the Potions Master, Donalbain Vaughn. "Please, shut it…"

He felt his face blush seeing that no one was really paying attention. James seemed to notice this, for he walked forward and stood next to him, making Albus wonder what he was thinking about. James drew his wand from his inner pocket, making his younger brother fear that he was going to hex everyone for not listening to him, but instead he simply put the wand to his throat.

"SHUT UP!" his voice was magnified through magic, and everyone stopped talking at once, more because of the sudden appearance of the loud voice than by the order itself. Albus felt himself blushing even harder when his brother now looked at him, putting his wand away at once. "Here, captain, now you can talk."

James grinned at him, with that look that so talked by itself, saying, or more like screaming into Albus' face: _I'm still the older brother, no matter what._

…

"I'm sick of people talking behind my back!" Albus whispered to his cousin Rose, who merely laughed a little. They were walking towards their Defence Against the Dark Arts class. Rose didn't say a word until they stopped by the closed classroom door, waiting for the professor to arrive.

"They'll get over it after the first match." Rose reassured him, nodding as she said so. "It's not your fault our family is good at Quidditch, now is it?"

"I hate being the captain." Al muttered under his breath, taking his Defence book from his schoolbag. He looked through the pages, fancying finding a useful tip before the class: even though Albus was unusually good at mostly anything school-related –except for Potions, maybe-, nonverbal spells had proven to be a skill he simply could not master. He took his wand out of his pocket and looked around the corridor, finding something he could try to summon nonverbally.

"Why don't you just resign?" Rose asked as she tried to suppress a smile at Al's efforts to summon things.

"And seeing James and Fred grinning at my defeat?" he snapped back, scowling at Rose. She simply raised an eyebrow.

"James resigned when he got the badge, didn't he?" Rose asked, causing his cousin to nod. "So why would he grin at your defeat if he did the same thing?"

"Because… ugh, you just wouldn't understand." Albus crossed his arms, giving up in summoning the book from Lysander's half open backpack. Professor Vaughn appeared around the corner, and Al was glad to find a good excuse to finish his unpleasant conversation with Rose.

…

"_Mum! James was made Quidditch captain!" Lily yelled excitedly as she ran downstairs, being closely followed by her oldest brother. Albus was meanwhile already sitting in the living room, looking through a muggle book Hugo had lent him, not very interested._

"_Really?" Ginny looked quite pleased with the news, but even through the happiness she noticed her eldest didn't look so pleased himself. "Why the face, Jamie?"_

"_I didn't want to be captain." He said rolling his eyes at his childhood nickname he so wished his mother would stop using. "Too much responsibility… I enjoy the game, but you know, it kind of takes away the fun of it."_

_Ginny nodded, in understanding. She knew her kids pretty well, and now that James had explained himself, his reasons seemed logical; it was something he would have said. She had herself experienced the captain position in a Quidditch team –although in a professional one-, and she knew how much work and effort it implied._

"_You can always resign, then." Lily said smiling in her usual cheerful way. James nodded absentmindedly, looking over at Albus, who wasn't paying much attention to the whole conversation._

"_I'm writing a letter to suggest a better captain." He said, smiling a little. Albus looked up, wondering who he was thinking about. It was probably Fred, or even Donalbain, who even though wasn't very well liked by James, he was definitely captain material. James smiled at Albus, and at a wave of his wand, a scroll of parchment flew to his hand from Albus' side._

"_That's mine." Al said, frowning. James simply smiled a little._

"_I'll pay you back, little Al." he said, laughing as he ran up the stairs again. Lily looked at him and then sat next to Albus._

"_You know, Al, I think he's plotting against you." Lily said in her wise manner. Albus simply raised an eyebrow at his little sister._

"_Lily, James is over all the childish behaviour." He said, nodding as he said so, convinced of his foolish words._

...

"Mr. Potter, maybe writing an essay will help you understand better the concept of nonverbal spells. One-foot, due next class." Professor Vaughn said as Albus walked past him when leaving the classroom. Al nodded, and waited until he was outside to grumble in frustration. He wasn't sure why his attempts at nonverbal were so futile, when a lot people who usually took longer than him to learn seemed to be doing at least basic spell work that day.

He straight to the Common Room, hoping to be able to sit down and relax for a second before Quidditch practice. He was finding it increasingly hard to be Captain: mostly everyone in Gryffindor had been heard talking about how more than half of the team was a member of the Potter-Weasley clan, and that clearly was attributed to the fact Albus was as mellow as anyone could get. He couldn't help but to listen to the comments the seventh-years made about James being so much more suitable for being Captain, or even Fred, and they hurt.

Why did James suggest him as Quidditch Captain? Why couldn't he suggest someone else, someone who was looking for the responsibility, or the attention? Albus certainly didn't like being the centre of attention; he never had in his life.

As soon as he walked in, he felt everyone's eyes set on him, even though that obviously wasn't the case, he was just being slightly paranoiac. He walked through the room towards the dormitory he shared with the other sixth-year boys. As he walked in, Harry Lane barely lifted his eyes from the book he was reading.

"Why weren't you in DADA?" Al asked, frowning slightly. He had hoped the dormitory would be empty. Harry put his book down and smiled a little.

"I didn't get the OWL." Harry answered, shrugging. "You know I'm not so good, Albus. I've been studying Charms." He said, showing his book to the black haired Potter boy.

Albus felt awkward for a while, for he did not know what to say next. He hardly ever talked to Harry, who was a rather nice boy but very shy and quiet and slightly weird, and the only times he had gotten to speak to him, they got to the very uncomfortable topic of his father, and how Harry had been named after Albus' dad –which Albus thought to be extremely odd-.

"By the way, Professor Lupin told me to ask you to come to his office before Quidditch practice." Harry said, his eyes back on the book. Albus nodded, and attempted to leave the room before he had to endure another minute in the unnerving company of Harry Lane. "Good luck with Quidditch by the way, you've set up an amazing team."

He smiled a little at those words. Harry was probably the first classmate who had said those words, and Al realised how badly he had needed to hear them.

...

"What is it, Teddy?" Albus asked, looking as Teddy Lupin was looking through parchments.

"Just wanted to see how you were doing." Teddy said, putting the least of the first-year essays he was checking aside. "Harry sent me a letter saying that he was worried about the lack of information in your usually very-descriptive weekly letters." He chuckled as he said that. Albus frowned. "I told him not to expect much more from a sixteen-year-old, but truth be told, I am amazed as well."

"I haven't had much time, I'm having trouble keeping up with my work." Al said, sitting across from Teddy, who gave him a bottle of butterbeer. "Thanks..."

"Too much school-work?" Ted asked tentatively, sipping from his own bottle. Albus shrugged, not so sure of the answer. "Is Professor Vaughn giving you a hard time?"

"How do you know that?" Albus asked, frowning. Teddy smiled a little.

"I am a teacher too, I tend to talk to other teachers." Al nodded, feeling stupid. Why was it that he was feeling stupid all the time lately? "Maybe you need some help with your nonverbal spells?"

"Could you help me?" Albus had looked up to Teddy's teaching abilities since he was very young, and had probably been the most excited person in the family when he heard the young metamorphmagus was going to teach at Hogwarts.

"I'm afraid I can't, I have a lot of work here. But what about asking James? He's pretty good, isn't he?"

"James, of course." Albus said, frowning at the sound of his brother's name. Teddy's smile got accentuated.

"Is this another James issue?"

"Why does everyone think that all my issues have something to do with James?"

"They usually do."

"Not this time." Albus said defiantly, scowling. Ted raised an eyebrow. "I'm just not used at not being good at something, and it's all adding up, with stupid prefect duties and then Quidditch practice and then everyone in my house thinking I'm favouring people in my family for the team when I'm not!"

Teddy didn't say anything to that, which was odd since he always had something to say in retort to pretty much anything any of the Weasley cousins had ever said.

"I didn't know you were the Quidditch captain." Ted mumbled, looking confused. "I thought Neville had appointed James as captain..."

"Well, James wrote to him suggesting me to be Captain! And he knows how much I hate to be in front of people, and how I hate being the centre of attention!"

"Did you ever ask him why he did that?"

"No, of course not, that would make him the winner."

"The winner of what, exactly? What kind of competition is there between you and James?"

"I know he did it just to see me resigning in the end, but I won't." Albus said, looking at the clock on the wall. "I need to go Teddy, Quidditch practice starts soon."

He stood up and tried to leave as quickly as possible, but that didn't stop him from hearing Ted's words through the half-closed door.

"Try talking to James, I think you might be taking this in the wrong way."

...

"Good practice, huh?" James said as they left the locker rooms. Albus nodded, not really listening, nor thinking James was actually talking to him. "Are you okay, Al?"

"I'm fine." Albus said, shrugging. It had been a couple months since that day he had met with Teddy in his office, and he was still struggling with being the team captain, even though the rest of the team tried their best to work as needed. They had barely won their first game against Hufflepuff, because Al had had a really hard time concentrating on the Snitch, and even though Rose had tried to cheer him up he still couldn't feel content enough.

And we had still struggling to keep up with his class work, because he had taken so many NEWT level classes, and obviously his prefect duties kept getting in the way. Why couldn't he just not be a prefect or a captain or anything more than simply Albus?

The only thing he was looking forward to was spending Christmas vacation –which was starting the following day- in his house with his parents, maybe he could even get to sit down and talk to his dad for a while. It just seemed as if Harry was the only one who could understand, so he kept writing and expecting letters back from him, looking for the encouragement he couldn't find in school.

He sat down for dinner at the house table, not expecting to have company while he ate, so he was surprised when James sat across from him.

"Are you alright, Al?" James asked, frowning slightly. Albus nodded, not really sure of what his brother wanted to hear. "You seem so out of yourself lately."

"I've been busy, that's all." Albus mumbled as he started eating. James helped himself to some food as well, but didn't take his eyes off his younger brother. They both ate in silence, Albus wondering what was going on with James, since he usually sat with Fred and his classmates or even with his girlfriend Leah. "Why aren't you with Fred... or Leah?"

"Fred is alright by himself, he's got other friends... and Leah... we broke up, sort of." James shrugged, not really caring that much. Albus nodded, thinking of back of the first break-up his older brother and Leah had had, how sad James had been, but after what seemed like the thousandth time the two Gryffindors had broken up, it just didn't seem like a big deal. James smiled slightly at Albus as he stared into his hazel eyes. "How... uh... how do you like being the captain?"

Albus couldn't stop himself from glaring intently at James, who tried to fight back a smile.

"It can't be that bad, the team is doing brilliantly—"

"James, we barely won last game, remember?" Albus said, trying to figure out whether James was actually being serious or just joking around with him, but then he realised that it wasn't likely for James to joke about Quidditch. The teenager across from him raised both his eyebrows, in a distinct gesture that reminded him of his mum's sceptic look.

"Al..." James closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, as if trying to soothe a piercing headache. "Albus, I think you're missing the whole point—"

"The point? Isn't the whole point of asking Neville to put me as captain just to annoy me? As if I didn't have anything better to do besides from playing leader to a Quidditch team? James, I am so not made to lead, and you're so... so... so..."

He couldn't find the appropriate words, so instead he just stood up and left the Great Hall, leaving James sitting there by himself, eyebrows pulled together in an easily noticeable frown, caused mainly by the confusing attitude that had gotten to his usually mellow younger brother.

"Have you seen Albus, James?" Rose asked sitting in the spot the green-eyed teenager had just vacated.

"He just left." James said, finishing his dinner. "I haven't seen much of you lately. Is that boyfriend of yours not letting talk to your family?"

"Very funny, but no, there's other things besides from Scorpius that keep me busy—"

"So you're admitting he keeps you busy?" James interrupted both eyebrows back up high in his forehead. Rose's face turned Weasley-red, but she didn't say anything. "Well, it doesn't really matter as long as you're happy, I suppose."

"That's very sensitive and mature of you James." Rose said without caring about keeping the scepticism out of her voice. James chuckled, but didn't comment on that.

"Albus is angry at me, right?"

"Well, I haven't seen much of Albus lately, I've been doing other things." Rose replied, her smile fading. "Why would he be angry, though? Have you done anything to upset him?"

"Apparently I unknowingly did." James muttered, scratching his long nose. "I thought it would be a good idea for him to be Captain."

Rose had to bite her tongue to refrain on commenting her views on Quidditch and the big deal guys seemed to make out of it, but James didn't seem to notice, or if he did he just didn't care enough.

"I worry about him. He's just so... insecure, I've seen him around people all my life, and he still seems like a little kid, you know..." James frowned, shaking his head. "I've been trying hard to have him get over whatever has gotten to him, I'm just..."

James sighed, and Rose had a hard time from trying to keep a straight face.

"Al is just shy." Rose finally said. James stared at her, once again looking deep in thought. "He's not like you, James, and I don't think it is a good idea to force him to be someone he's not. He enjoys Hogwarts his way. You just can't force him to be... what do you exactly expect him to be?"

"I don't know... He's my brother, I just worry... it's my last year here, and I won't be here next year and I don't want him to be just..."

Rose was now mildly surprised. Was James really _this_ worried about Albus?

"He's not a little boy anymore." Rose said. James nodded.

"No matter what, he will always be my younger brother. I might seem annoying or whatever, but I just want him to be okay." James said, smiling a little. "Do you think it was a bad idea to let him get the Captain badge? I guess I could've suggested Fred... but Albus would've probably gotten it next year anyway..."

"You should tell him this, not me." Rose said after a while. James stared at her as if she was saying something as mad as Quidditch being no longer a sport. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Oh—sorry, didn't mean to." James said, laughing. "It's just... Al and I, we don't really _talk_ about stuff like this, you know..."

"Well, it's about time you get started on it." Rose wasn't about to start acting like a messenger between the Potter brothers when they could as well talk about it with each other.

"We're not good at talking." James insisted. "We just kind of, eh, let things happen, it's a silent agreement."

"How old are you? Five?" she didn't even try fighting her smile back. "Just talk to him James, act like the seventeen-year-old you are and I'm sure he'll respond in his best sixteen-year-old way, not like he's four while you're being five."

"I'm eighteen, just so you know." James said, chuckling to himself. "Rosie, how do you manage to be so sensible at all times?"

"Practice makes perfect."

...

"Al, dear, stop straining yourself, I'm sure it'll be fine if you stop studying for one second." Molly Weasley said as she walked into Ron's old bedroom in The Burrow, which was currently the room the Potter brothers were using while they stayed there for a couple for days.

"Just a little bit more, grandma..." Albus said, turning the page of his DADA book, barely being able to focus on learning anymore.

"Dinner is ready." Molly insisted, leaving him still sitting on the floor with the book open on his crossed legs. Albus nodded absentmindedly, trying to read a little bit more before he went downstairs.

"If I were the book, I'd be intimidated by the look you're giving it." James commented as he walked in, sitting on the bed he was sleeping in. Albus barely acknowledged his presence. "Albus, I'm talking to you."

Just then Albus closed the book and raised his head to stare at his older brother. James' smiled wasn't returned though. He registered the bags under his brother's eyes, the tired look upon his slightly freckled face.

"Al, you look dreadful." He frowned as he said those words.

"Thanks." Albus muttered back. James stared at him for a second before scratching the back of his neck, not sure of how to begin the talk he had been planning for a few days.

"Albus, I'm sorry if you got upset about being named Captain. I figured I was doing something beneficial, not bad... I never meant to put you in the spotlight or anything." James started. Albus stared back, not saying a word. "I talked to Teddy and he says you're stressed over your classes and being a prefect and then I added to all that by having you take what was supposed to be my Captain position and, I'm sorry, really. I just wanted to help... I... I'm worried about you now that I'm graduating."

James wasn't sure why he was finally saying all those words, and Albus seemed just about as surprised, so surprised in fact that he didn't manage to get any words from his own mouth, so James decided to just continue rambling on.

"Since you were little you just looked to... well, small and fragile and I just felt like protecting you, but I didn't want to be too obvious... I'm afraid I've been trying to manipulate the circumstances around you, you were always right behind me at home, and I purposefully ignored you in school not only because I didn't want to be seen hanging out with my little brother but also because I felt like you should have your own friends, not only the family around, and you've done pretty good, not only in that but also in school and being a good student and Quidditch player, but I thought you needed something else... which now I realise you didn't, I figured that you would just resign the position if you didn't want it, I never thought you would just take it, as if to prove anything to me... I had begun to think you had gotten over me as your annoying older brother, the one you used to stutter around, the one you followed all over the place—"

"You're making me sound like a small, annoying child." Albus interrupted, chuckling in the process. James stopped immediately and flushed a little, smiling, obviously realising how much he had just said.

Neither of them spoke for a while. James' eyes became fixated on his shoelaces, while Albus just straightened his askew reading glasses.

It was the later who broke the silence after a while.

"Never thought you cared much about me, really." He said, taking his glasses off and stuffing them into his pocket. "But it's nice to see that you actually did."

"So you're not angry at me anymore?"

"I wasn't really angry, I was just... confused. I couldn't get why you would do something I thought you would know I wouldn't like much."

"I was just trying to help. I didn't want to be the Captain, and at the same time I wanted to give you the chance to be a leader. I'm sorry if it didn't come out as planned... you can resign, I mean, I won't make fun of you or anything."

"Are you mad? I don't think I want to see the looks of 'We-knew-it-all-along' in everyone's faces! I... Dad told me about when he was Captain, and he didn't have an easy time either and he seriously had serious business to mind when he was in sixth-year! Prefect duties and homework is nothing compared to what he faced." Albus looked absolutely serious, and even though he didn't specify, James was perfectly aware of the topic of conversation, which was a theme rarely talked over in the Potter household, unless strictly necessary. "And even though I can barely keep up with everything, I'm still going to try. I'm not giving up."

"Well, I'm glad." James said, laughing a little at Albus' overenthusiastic overcome. It was amazing how their father's words seemed to fuel the young teenagers' spirits in any given occasion. "I'm starving, let's go get some dinner."

Albus nodded and they got up off the floor at the same time. Both brothers made their way out the room, James being closely followed by his brother. Right before they made it into the kitchen, Albus grabbed James' arm, who stopped and looked questioningly at his brother.

"What?" he asked, smiling a little.

"Teddy reminded me of how good you're at the subjects I'm not specially good..."

James grinned.

"Is that a way to ask for help?"

"Maybe..."

His grin got even more accentuated.

"I think I could fit helping you in my already tight timetable, brother."

---

_I'm sorry it took so long for me to update! I started Medicine School and it's just been so much work. I'm on my winter break now, and finally catching my breath after a long time, and in the middle of the new Harry Potter movie coming out hype I felt inspired enough to read both Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows again, which inspired me to continue writing this piece! This chapter wasn't as straightforward as the previous ones, but I'm sure it won't be too hard to read nevertheless... it's just my way to give sort of a closing to the Potter brothers relationship in school, a little bit of a weird explanation since James is leaving school. Next chapter will be the last, and I'll seriously try to get it on here before I start school again, which will be on August 3__rd__. _

_Once again, sorry for the long delay! Thanks for everyone who reviewed and added this story to their alerts, it means a great deal to me! Thanks, and please review__!_

_-Phankam._


	8. Where you want to be

_**Disclaimer: **__NEWS BREAK! Contrary to popular belief, Phankam does not own Harry Potter! :) JK Rowling does._

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_July 21__st__, 2022_

_James:_

_I'm sorry I haven't written in while, but you haven't either so you can't say anything against me. The house is awfully quiet without you or Lily around –she's staying at some friend's house for a week or so-, so it's basically just me and Mrs. Black, who, as you know, isn't exactly the best summer companion one can wish for. _

_Dad has been very busy at work because of some random groups of people claiming to be Death Eaters –you know, the usual stuff-, and mum has been preparing everything for us to travel to Norway to witness the finals for the Quidditch World Cup. Are you going to be able to come? It'd be brilliant; I think mum managed to get tickets for a good number of people in the family, so I reckon it will be fun._

_So my summer hasn't been very exciting, and it probably sounds even worse to you, Mr. 'I-am-doing-an-internship-in-Bulgaria'. I've been flooing to Diagon Alley pretty often, but it gets old after a while, and there's no one really to hang out with. And plus, I hate flooing. I am going to the Ministry next week with dad after I turn 17 so I can take my apparition exam, which I'll probably pass. And… I miss you. I'm sorry if my letter doesn't make much sense, but you know I'm not the best letter writer in the family, that would be Rose._

_Take care; I hope to hear from you soon._

_Your little brother,_

_Albus S. Potter._

_PS: Oh, and by the way, say hi to Uncle Viktor and Aunt Angie, and to Andrei too, even though I still think he's an idiot._

James chuckled as he finished reading the letter that had just arrived with his sister's owl Fiona. He wondered for a second why Albus had used Lily's owl instead of his own, but refrained from asking. The letter had taken some days to arrive, and James realised his brother's birthday was the following day, the 26th of July. He stretched in his bed and looked at the ceiling. The room was decorated in green and silver, and James couldn't help but to feel slightly uncomfortable with the Slytherin colours, but what else could he expect? He was, after all, sleeping in Andrei Krum's bedroom, and obviously with him being a Slytherin prefect and Slytherin Quidditch captain, he'd favour those colours.

He sat up on the bed and looked around for some parchment to reply to the letter as soon as possible, since tomorrow he would go back to being an intern at the Wizarding Hospital in Bulgaria -which had a name that he could hardly pronounce- and he definitely wouldn't have time to do so then.

...

"How's James doing, Ginny?" Molly Weasley asked as Albus and Lily were setting the table for dinner. Albus felt quite accomplished of being able to do it with his wand, which until a few days before he hadn't been allowed to do, while Lily glared at him for 'showing-off' his new permission to do magic outside of school. Rose was successfully charming a knife to peel potatoes by itself, with the help of Aunt Fleur, who had a few nice household charms under her sleeve.

It was hard not to notice how The Burrow was starting to look emptier every summer, with the Weasley grandchildren slowly leaving school and thus leaving their homes. The only members of the family who still attended school were Albus, Rose, Roxanne, Lily and Hugo, and the only one of the older ones that was still at home was Fred, who decided to continue working at Weasley Wizard Wheezes with his father.

"He hasn't written much, but that's just how boys are." Ginny answered, looking over at Albus. He smiled a little, knowing that she was referring to the fact that if Albus ever wrote home from school, the letter was most likely addressed to Harry.

"Rose is usually the one to write home, it takes a lot to get Hugo to write." Hermione commented as she eyed warily the knife her daughter was charming, not quite able to relax even though the seventeen-year-old girl seemed to be doing alright with her magic.

"I'm not sure who was worse, Ronald or Charles." Molly commented as she looked over at her sons, who ever out of earshot. Ron smiled a little, not sure of what was being said about him, and Charlie merely rolled his eyes, knowing that it was probably some sort of complaint.

"Probably dad, he's still pretty bad with letters." Rose said as she put her wand down. "He rarely replies personally when I write..."

"He did write back that one time... when he found out about you and Scorpius..." Lily teased, which transformed Rose's previous friendly face into a murdering scowl and she put her wand back up just slightly, which was quickly spotted by their grandma.

"It's just a little joke, sweetie. And also we all think Scorpius is a fine young man, don't we?" she said, looking around the room. Albus nodded, and so did Hermione, Ginny and Lily (who was still grinning in a mischievous way), which was enough for Molly. Ron and Charlie walked back into the kitchen.

"What's the topic?" Charlie asked as he sat at the kitchen table right next to Lily, who moved closer to her favourite uncle.

"Oh, just talking about Scorpius Malfoy." Lily said, getting yet another murderous glance from Rose. Ron seemed to get paler for a second, but didn't comment. "He and Rose, they're just so..." Lily made a gesture with her hands that seemed to evoke something huge. "So special, you'd think they've been made for each other..."

"Lily, let me remind you I am allowed to use magic outside of school now." Rose muttered under her breath, so just Albus and Lily, who were the closest to her, could hear.

"Scorpius is okay." Ron said in what sounded like a very well-rehearsed line. "So... Albus, any thoughts of after-school careers?" The topic switch was so fast it took Albus a while to process, so he just let his mouth hang open for a second before managing to find words to answer the question.

Truth be told, he didn't really like talking about it since he wasn't so sure about it himself, and having all those eyes on him definitely wasn't helping him with making a decision.

"Don't know... have to pass NEWTs... and... then think..." Albus said, trying very hard not to stutter as he did when he was starting to get nervous or uncomfortable with a situation.

"What about you, Rosie?" Molly asked, realising that her grandson didn't seem too happy about touching the subject, and Albus was thankful to be taken off the spotlight.

"I've been giving it plenty of thought, and I'm seriously considering joining the Auror Academy."

The silence that followed was very deep, and Albus took the time to look at the confusion building up on every adult face in the room. For him and Lily that was no news, both of them had heard about it from Rose on their train ride back home after the previous semester, and even if it had come as a shock at first, it made sense: Rose was probably one of the best in Defence Against the Dark Arts in their year, and besides from being fairly intelligent she was also quite adventurous.

"Auror Academy?" Ron repeated, not stopping his lips from twitching into a smile. "Like me? I thought you were going to go into an office job like your mum."

Hermione seemed to have lost the use of words for a second, but then managed to smile a little.

"That brilliant Rosie, but why hadn't you told us?"

Rose shrugged as an answer, to which Ginny rolled her eyes.

"She got that bit from Ron, that's obvious." She commented as she took a sip from the butterbeer bottle. "It's great that you sound so sure about it, Rose."

Rose smiled and said something back, but Albus didn't hear her answer for he was too busy thinking about his mother's words about Rose's determination and sureness about her future. What about him? He had been thinking about it, but he seriously wasn't sure of what he would be good at.

He thought of his brother James, now being a mediwizard intern in a Bulgarian magical hospital which name he could seriously not pronounce, an opportunity he had found when talking about after-school careers with Neville, who commented about the usual need of skilled potion-makers in that area of expertise, which James thought to be brilliant and definitely something worthy of being tried...

... and it had shocked Albus that for James it had been so easy as to hear about it and say yes right away. If he had been offered such a chance, he would've probably ended up losing it just because of the eternal time it would've taken him to decide, mostly because he was so worried about his future that he did not dare make a decision without thinking about his other options very carefully too.

The worst part of it all is that everyone else seemed to know what they were good at and what they liked best, even people who always seemed clueless about the world like Lysander, while Albus struggled trying to find out what he would enjoy to do _for the rest of his life._

...

"Come on Al! There has to be something!" Annie insisted, frowning at poor Albus Severus Potter, The Boy Who Had No Idea.

"I really don't know." Albus insisted, shaking his head and looking out of their compartment window. The landscape was slowly turning into what they saw every day at Hogwarts, and Albus couldn't remember being more anxious about school ever since he was on the train for the very first time with James peeking in every hour to tease him about Slytherin.

"It's okay Al, not everyone can be like Rosie." Fifteen-year-old Hugo Weasley said as he tried to make a muggle camera he had gotten from his grandparents work.

"Shut it, Hugo. You're talking as if it is a bad thing." Rose complained.

"Back to Albus." Lily said, straightening up on her seat. "You did talk to Neville on fifth-year for career advice, right?"

"Yeah, we all had to." Rose said before Al had a chance to speak. "It wasn't very helpful though, Neville didn't seem like he knew what he was doing, so don't expect too much from that talk."

"He did tell me I had the grades for becoming an Auror, _like my father_." Albus interjected, shaking his head. "I don't know why people are so insistent upon me becoming an Auror like dad."

"People were urging James to become an Auror too, Al." Lily commented as she looked straight into his brother's green eyes. "And you've heard them hinting at me to get started on Quidditch already."

"Why does Quidditch have anything to do with becoming an Auror?" Hugo asked, raising an eyebrow. Lily looked at him in disbelief.

"They just want us to be like our parents, Hugo. You heard your dad when Rosie said she wanted to be an Auror, remember? _I thought you were going for an office job, like your mum_." Lily said matter-of-factly. Albus nodded, knowing that even though no one would force them to choose a specific career path, everyone expected them to follow on their parents' footsteps. "I wouldn't be surprised if they expect you to join the Ministry now." She added after a second. Hugo looked terrified at that prospect, making everyone in the compartment laugh.

"Daddy has been insisting that I try to join the Ministry, just like he did." Annie added, nodding eagerly. "Mum agrees with him, but I don't think I fancy Muggle Relations as much as they do." She said, shrugging. "I like Magical Creatures, and Lysander's mum asked me if I'd like to go with them on one of their trips next summer, which ought to be fun, and who knows, maybe I'll get to get started with a career in that area."

"Are you sure you can spend a whole summer with Lysander without murdering him?" Lily asked with a wide grin. Annie glared at her and then nodded her head.

"Where's Lysander anyway?" Hugo asked, looking to the compartment door as if expecting the blonde boy to walk in anytime.

"I saw him talking to Lorcan a couple compartments down." Rose said, looking not at Hugo but at Lily, whose grin disappeared for a second but quickly returned, just not as wide. "And there were also some other seventh-years. Scorpius was there, too."

"How come Scorpius isn't here, all over you?" Lily asked. Rose glared at her and mouthed something that no one else caught, but it seemed to make Lily stop asking those questions.

"He has friends to be with, just like I do." Rose stated, nodding. "Al?"

"Yeah?" the seventeen-year-old raised his head at the mention of his name. He had not been paying attention most of the time, since his mind was still set in finding the perfect career for him.

"Are you still thinking about careers?"

"What else would I be thinking about? It's our last year, I need to know before we finish school!" he seemed desperate. Everyone seemed very serious, except for his sister, who seemed about to chuckle. "What is so funny, Lily?"

"You just take yourself so seriously. Calm down, it's not a life-or-death matter." Lily said, standing up suddenly. "Well, I've had enough of your older-people talking; I'm off to find my friends. Hugo, are you coming?"

"Sure. Bye, guys." Hugo said as he jumped off his seat and followed his best friend down the corridor. Rose looked over at Albus, who still seemed a little put off by what Lily had said.

"She is right, you know. You don't have to know what you want right away."

"You could always try different things and then see what you like the best." Annie recommended, smiling as the door opened again and Lysander walked in, sitting across from Rose, next to Albus and smiled slightly.

"Hello. I'm sorry it took me long to come here, Lorcan and I had some things to talk about."

"Don't worry Lysander." Annie said almost immediately, smiling at the boy. Lysander smiled back and closed his eyes for a second.

"What were you talking about?" he finally asked, opening his silvery grey eyes and looking around the compartment.

"It's nothing important." Al was quick to say that, because he didn't want to be in the spotlight anymore.

"Just a few minutes ago you were freaking out about it, and now it is not important?" Rose asked sceptically, raising both her eyebrows. Al didn't even scowl: he knew there was no point.

"Freaking out about the Ministry conspiracy coming back, I suppose." Lysander said, sitting up straight and looking at everyone's faces with apparent excitement, which faded a little as everyone just stared back at him with confusion in their faces. "Right?"

No one knew what to say, but they all supposed what was going to come after that statement: a long explanation of how Lysander had read an old issue of The Quibbler and had gotten some crazy idea from it.

"As much as we'd like to be warned about such awful conspiracy, Lysander, we're actually talking about Al's career after school." Rose said quickly. She seemed to be the only one not willing to go through another of her friend's delusional attempts to have them believe his mad ideas.

"Albus?" Lysander said, falling back into his seat again, not looking even slightly interested anymore. "You should be a Healer. Or a mediwizard." He said, smiling slightly. "Or a teacher, even. You were amazing helping me get my Charms OWL."

"Are you seriously suggesting I become a Healer or mediwizard?" Albus asked, almost in disbelief. Lysander nodded.

"Or a teacher." He added. Rose looked at Albus.

"You would be a good teacher, but they won't let you teach here in Hogwarts, you'd be barely eighteen by the start of the next term."

"I don't want to be a teacher anyway." Albus mumbled.

"Healing could be your thing. You worry about people a lot, and you like you help."

"I'm awful at Potions, though. Isn't that a must?" Al said, frowning.

"You're not awful at it. You got an E in your OWL and you're pretty good in our NEWT level class."

"I'm one of the worst in our year." He insisted.

"There are only twelve people taking Seventh-Year NEWT-level Potions, and those twelve are the top 12 students of our year. And that includes you." Annie said.

"But I'm still the worst in the class."

"You're still averaging an A in the class. Just put a little more effort into it and you will get an E on your NEWT." Rose insisted, nodding eagerly.

"Maybe I don't want to be a Healer." Albus said stubbornly, although he wasn't sure why he was resisting the idea so much. He knew he could probably get an E on all five required NEWTs, but he didn't know if Healing was his thing.

"Well, you have a whole year to decide, Albus." Lysander said.

"Are you dropping any classes this year, Lysander?" Annie asked, and Al was glad to find himself of the spotlight again. He barely registered Lysander's answer, and instead let his mind focus on the new suggestion.

He had never considered Healing as a career for him, but it could work out. He was good, and he knew he could do it, but it scared him to think about making a wrong choice and then having to stick with it or even lose time while figuring out that he wasn't so fond of it.

---

_Again, I decided to split this chapter into more chapters, because I think this is going for long. Not much of James on this chapter, but he will reappear sooner than expected, maybe not physically but... yeah._

_I hope you liked this, and I'm sorry for the delay. Also, to my faithful readers and reviewers! :D_

_Review, please!_

_-Phankam._


	9. Expectations

_**Disclaimer:**_ _I don't own Harry Potter. Period._

---

_October 20__th__, 2022_

_Al:_

_I'm sorry it took me so long to answer your letter. These bloody people at the hospital, they're using me as their slave! It still feels strange that no one really gives a damn about who dad is. Here, I'm just Potter, not even James or Mr Potter. Just Potter, as it sounds. Which in a way is cool, but on the other side, I miss being treated as a celebrity by adults._

_How's school coming? Are you still dating the Wood girl? And I know you're giving 'the look' to this paper as you read that. Lily told me about it, so no point in hiding it. She's really pretty too, so it's the dog's bollocks to me. And talking about girls, have you seen Leah? She refuses to answer my letters, but oh mate, do I miss her or what?_

_Well, have fun in classes and Quidditch. And don't forget to write. I think if it weren't for you, Lily and Rosie writing, I'd go totally mad. _

_Your big brother,_

_James S. Potter._

_P.S. Oh, and tell that dimwit Fred Weasley to write. As far as I remember, he knows how to put a pen to paper from time to time._

Albus chuckled at the last time. Of course Fred wouldn't write, he was too occupied with his family's business in Hogmeade, but Albus made a note to himself to pay him a visit and the Three W's to remind him that James was in need of some cousin love.

"Is that from your brother?" Albus got startled by the voice of Lysander Scamander as he walked into their dormitory.

"Yeah… he sounds needy, too." The young Potter said, folding the letter and putting it inside of his robes. "Have you seen Rose?"

"Last time I saw her, she was with Scorpius in the library." Lysander said, sitting on his trunk and staring with his wide blue eyes at Al. "Have you told James about the Quidditch team?"

"Tell him what, exactly? My team is bloody fit to win against anyone." Albus defended his team fiercely, especially since he had been receiving a lot of criticism over his choice in new players.

"Don't get angry at me, I think it's brilliant that you have an almost all-girls team."

"People don't seem to get that I just wanted the best team, and I've got to admit that Annie and Sam are incredible beaters, just like Augusta and Lily seem to make a perfect team along with Colin." Albus knew he sounded like he was excusing himself, but it was the truth.

It had been hard to choose players this year. He had thought that replacing the beaters would've been the hardest part, but he was surprised at Annie's determination to hit bludgers, and at sweet little Augusta's arm power when she swung her bat. Maybe they didn't work as well together as James and Fred had on previous years, but if it was the best his House could offer, he would definitely take it.

"I think people's problem is that both your sister and girlfriend are in the team." Lysander said, and Albus couldn't help but to scowl at him. "Don't look at me like that, you know it's true. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing either, Alicia is a bloody brilliant Keeper, and everybody knows your sister is fierce on a broomstick."

"You have no bloody idea about Quidditch, Ly." Al replied, but this time he was smiling a little. Truth be told, Lily was, no doubts about it, a great chaser, just like their mum had been on her years in the Holyhead Harpies. And she was better at flying than both James and Albus, because she was tiny and thus faster than them on the same brand of broomstick.

"Are you coming to Hogsmeade?" Lysander asked after a few minutes of silence, standing up and picking up his scarf from his bed.

"Yeah, I need to go to Fred's."

"Thinking about pranks?" Lysander smiled a little at that. Albus shook his head. Lysander just laughed and turned around. "I'll see you around, then."

"Aren't you waiting for me?" Albus asked, standing up abruptly and putting his wand in his robes, just as he had with James' letter, and wrapped his scarf around his neck.

"I thought you would go with Alicia."

"She's in detention with my sister, so there's no chance of that." He said, following Lysander out the door. "Aren't you going with Annie?"

"No. Why would I?"

"I was under the impression she wanted you to invite her." Albus explained a little awkwardly. He knew Lysander was a little clueless most of the time, but Annie was really clear about her intentions with the blonde haired boy. Lysander stared at him for a second, but didn't seem to really get it.

"I don't know, I haven't seen Annie today either. It seems like she's angry at me, for some reason. I'm going to meet up with Lorcan."

"Let's get moving, then."

…

"ALBUS, THE SNITCH!" Lily screamed as she flew past him, the quaffle safely tucked under her arm as she approached the goals that were being guarded by a third-year she didn't know. Albus looked back and saw the black haired son of his DADA teacher flying towards the tiny ball. He sped up towards that way, and was both worried and grateful when a well-aimed bludger hit by Annie collided against the tail of the Slytherin Seeker's broomstick, breaking it and making him fall, although he wasn't too high up. Albus pushed forward, and extended his arm, enclosing his fingers around the golden snitch, and heard the claps and cheering at the same time Lily was scoring on the opposite side of the field.

He straightened his broom and landed, still holding onto the snitch, and ran towards Fred Vaughn, who was still in the ground.

"Are you okay?" he asked, worriedly. He liked the Vaughn's, for they were really nice kids no matter which house they were in. Fred sat up and rubbed his head.

"I'm okay, Potter." He said, standing up and picking up his broken broomstick. "I wanted a new one anyway."

"AND ONCE AGAIN AL POTTER CATCHES THE SNITCH!" Roxie's voice screamed around the stadium, amplified by magical means. "And that leaves us with Gryffindor 250, Slytherin 100!"

Albus turned around to face his team. The girls jumped on him, throwing him to the ground. He could recognise his sister's voice screaming almost in his ear, deafening him progressively. When he finally stood up, he couldn't help himself but to grin widely at the audience. They had just shown how he had chosen the right team. Colin high-fived him as he made his way into the locker room, but he knew the best part of it was seeing Alicia hugging him, and kissing him, no mattering how many people were looking.

Back in the common room, the party was on and it didn't seem like it was about to be stopped. He spotted Leah snogging Daniel Finnigan, and he felt a little bad for James and his little obsession with the Muggleborn girl, who seemed to have forgotten about his brother. He turned around and received a butter beer from Rose, who was sitting with a piece of parchment and a quill.

"I can't believe you're doing homework. We're supposed to party, we won!" Albus exclaimed happily. Rose smiled a little, looking amused at his cousin's behaviour.

"I need to fill this and send it by Monday. It can't wait." She said simply, writing her birth date underneath her name.

"What is it for?" Albus asked, curious.

"Auror Office. I need to apply for Auror training." Albus' smiled disappeared.

"What are the deadlines for applying?" he asked, nervously.

"Why do you care? You're not joining the Auror Academy. And the first deadline is this Monday." She said, looking suspiciously at Albus, who was biting his bottom lip, just as he did when he was nervous. "Albus, what are you thinking about?"

"Me? Nothing." He mumbled, shrugging it off.

"You're applying to the Auror Academy." Rose said, her expression once again amused. Albus muttered something incomprehensible, but it was definitely an affirmative response. "But you don't want to be an Auror."

"I applied just in case." He excused himself, looking a little embarrassed. "I mean… dad… dad liked the idea when I told him, so I figured I could… well, I'm just applying, nothing else. There's a chance I won't even make the cut, or get the required NEWTs…"

"Your dad is Head of the Auror Office." Rose reminded him, and received a scowl as a response. "Don't give me 'the look', Albus. We both know…"

"My dad wouldn't let me in just because I'm me." He said defensively. If he was going to go into the Auror office, it would be because of his own merit.

"I thought you were sending your application for an internship in St. Mungo's." Rose still looked in between amusement and worry, and that bothered the green-eyed Potter boy.

"I did that, too. What is it Rosie, don't you want us to be Aurors together?"

"Albus, you hate the Auror career. We discussed this already."

"Maybe I changed my mind." He said, standing up, forgetting all about the celebrations. He left without waiting for an answer, still clutching his butterbeer bottle on one hand, and the golden snitch fluttering about in his pocket.

…

_November 20__th__, 2022_

_James:_

_I hope everything is alright in Bulgaria, especially since the last incident you had with that one American wizard who freaked out about you being a teenager and not wanting to be healed by you. Are your superiors being somewhat nicer to you? I hope so._

_Regarding your questions about school, yes, I am top of the class currently, and yes I am still dating Scorpius and there isn't much you can do to convince me to break up with him. And I thought you had finally decided to approve of him last time, but I guess I was wrong. You know he's a really nice and smart person, and I really like being with him, so shut it already._

_Have you heard about Quidditch yet? I figure Lily already sent you a play-by-play summary of the game, but I just have to say this: WE WON THE FIRST MATCH! Albus has been doing great as a captain, he's playing better than ever, and so is Lil. Everyone in the school thought that Albus' team wasn't going to make it past the game with Slytherin, but it was a great game. Lily was top-scorer, of course, and she's already talking about making a career out of Quidditch. _

_And about careers… did Albus tell you about him applying to the Auror Academy?_

James stopped reading at that, and read the line again just in case he had misread. But no, it was right there.

"What the bloody hell? Albus an Auror?" he smirked at the thought. His little brother had always hated the fact that their dad was an Auror, and it didn't seem like he would want to be one himself, ever.

_I don't know what got into his head; everyone in the family knows he's not so keen onto DADA anyway. I was hoping you could write to him or something, give him some advice. In the past you have proven to be good at helping him, even if you deny you care._

_Are you coming for Christmas? It'd be lovely to see you. I miss you, even though you usually treat Al and I as if we were small annoying children. The Common Room just isn't the same without your loud obnoxiousness._

_Lots of love,_

_Rosie Weasley._

James smiled at the letter. For him, Rosie was quite high up in his list, and he appreciated the fact that she wrote to him at least once a week to keep him updated about the happenings in the school and family, just like his siblings did. Rose had always made a point to have everyone know her thoughts on James' behaviour, but after he had left the country, she had discovered how much she cared about him.

His hand ran through his already untidy black hair as he thought about what to do. He knew there was no point in trying to convince Albus not to join the Academy, nor it was a good idea to write to talk him out of it, but he could surely do something, right? Tweaking circumstances was his thing after all.

But maybe it would be good to let Albus make his own choices. After all, he was not a small boy anymore.

...

"Mum! I can't find my dress!" Albus heard his sister yelling and running down the stairs from his room. He ran his hands over his dress robes, and wished he didn't have to go to this stupid dinner at the Ministry, but of course, being the son of Harry Potter, he was expected to.

His dad hadn't seemed too pleased either when the Ministry had decided to organise a dinner party before Christmas, just because there were visits from other Ministers happening at the time. Albus knew that they had been invited because of his dad being Head of the Auror Office, but it still annoyed him slightly.

"Albus? Are you ready?" Ginny asked through the closed door.

"Yes, mum." He said, opening the door. Ginny couldn't help but to smile at his grown-up little boy. "You look beautiful, mum."

"Thanks Al." She said, fixing the collar of his white shirt. "You look really handsome as well. Now I need to help Lily find her dress, can you go see if James is ready?"

"Of course." He said, leaving his room as his mum entered Lily's, along with the red-haired girl. He knocked on James' door, and opening the door as he heard his brother telling him to come in.

James had changed on the six months he had spent in Bulgaria. His hair was long and in a ponytail, like their uncle Bill, and now he didn't ever take off his glasses, as if he didn't care about being seen with them on as he did when he was still in school. Now he and Albus stood at almost exactly the same height, but he looked stronger than his brother.

But the biggest change was definitely his personality. He didn't seem to think he was the greatest anymore, in fact, he acted as if he didn't need much attention anymore, like he was an adult and he could take care of his needs by himself.

"I can't believe you're wearing robes that match your eyes." James joked as he saw his brother walk in. Albus rolled his eyes.

"These are the ones that fit the best." Albus said, fixing his robes again, feeling his wand in the inner pocket poking him. He drew his wand, and James chuckled. "What are you laughing about?"

"For a second I thought you were going to jinx me for making fun of your robes." He explained, picking up his wand from the desk and stuffing it into the inner pocket of his own black robes. "I was talking to dad just a while ago; he seems to be so proud yet confused about your decision to join the Aurors."

"Well, isn't everyone?" Albus replied coldly, putting his wand away. "Mum wanted to know if you were ready to go."

"I am. But Lily isn't, is she? I heard her saying something about her dress..."

"She was playing Quidditch up until an hour ago, so she's late... as always." Albus smiled as his brother had said the exact same two words at the same time as him.

"I missed being at home." James said, sitting down on his bed, with the red and gold covers he had had since his start at Hogwarts, running his hand across the Gryffindor lion emblem he had right above his bed, which roared at the touch. "I miss school, too."

"Your job is probably really exciting, isn't it?"

"Yes... yes, it is. I'm the best potion-maker in the group, and the fastest. The Healer in charge of us, Minkov, keeps praising me for that."

"So, are you still thinking about specializing in Quidditch injuries so you can go to games?" Albus asked, smiling at that. James had told him from the beginning that he fancied working in the Quidditch field anyway.

"Well..." James shrugged. "I'm not sure. The job is so much different from what I had imagined. I still have six months to decide. I won't be receiving my Mediwizard certificate until late June, so after that I can see whether I want to keep on working towards the goal of becoming a proper Healer, or choose a specialty in the Mediwizard field, such as Quidditch Injuries. But..." Albus stared at his brother's face, which was suddenly filled with thoughtfulness. "There's more options, of course, but I need better thinking to make a choice."

"I'm surprised, since it didn't take you ten minutes to decide you wanted to go to Bulgaria." Albus joked, but stopped smiling as he saw the seriousness upon James' face.

"It is different. I was just trying stuff out, but it turns out I really like this. I don't know if I'd like to be a Healer, because I like the thrill of having to act in the place where the action happened."

"Boys! Let's go!" Ginny called. "I'm taking Lily side-along, you two better show up at the Ministry right after me!"

They both heard the loud cracking noise made by apparition in the midst of their silence. Finally, James shrugged.

"Mum will kill us if we don't make it in time."

...

"The stupid dinner was awful, people kept congratulating me for the whole Auror thing. 'Just like your father!' they said, it annoyed me so much." Albus ranted to Rose, at The Burrow's Christmas dinner.

"You brought it upon you though, didn't you?"

"That's barely the point, Rose! I just hate the fact that everyone keeps saying that I'm doing it because of being like dad. Maybe I just changed my mind, and want to be an Auror, right?"

"Sure thing." Rose nodded, but wasn't really buying Albus' words, and he seemed to noticed as he sighed.

"Good thing at least I'm not the centre of attention in this family, that'd be killer."

"Teddy doesn't seem to be enjoying the spotlight much, either." Rose said, looking over at Teddy, who smiled nervously as he talked to Bill and Louis. "About time they got engaged, though."

"Victoire took a while to say yes." Lily said, sitting across from them. "I've been saying they'd end up marrying since forever, but neither of them seemed to noticed, and they denied it. Well, I'm always right in these things."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. I'm a matchmaker. For instance, I know that Rose will end up marrying Scorpius, and that uncle Ron will have a fit right before the wedding."

"That's not a hard guess though." Al teased as Rose slapped his arm and scowled at Lily. "You've been together since fourth-year, it doesn't take a genius."

"You're meant from each other. It's like Romeo and Juliet." Lily said excitedly. "Or like Al and Alicia... even their names sound nice together. And it's so much like mum and dad, it's adorable."

"Lily, you seem to be reading too many my mum's books." Rose said, smiling. "What about you? Weren't you dating Lorcan?"

"Lorcan and I are just not meant to be together." She said, shrugging. "I'm not seeing anyone right now."

"She's currently dating Fred Vaughn!" Hugo said as he ran by, and tripped at a fast wand movement of Lily's wand.

"You're not supposed to go magic outside of school, Lil." Albus said, laughing. He thought Fred was a nice boy, even if he was a Slytherin.

"Good jinx, little sister. I'm glad to see you're learning from the master." James said, sitting amongst them. "So, dating a Vaughn, huh? Are you at least getting better grades at Potions for it?"

"Fred is the son of the Defence professor." Lily explained. "And we're not dating, we're just friends..."

"Really close friends." Hugo interrupted, sitting right next to James. "Almost _too_ close. I personally don't go around snogging with my friends..."

Everyone laughed as Lily attempted to jinx Hugo once again, but the red haired boy blocked it.

"Stop being such a git, Hugo!" Lily snarled, making everyone else laugh again. "I'm not running around telling everyone how you've been snogging Janelle Peters by the lake!"

"Janelle Peters? Isn't she older than both of you?" James asked, trying to stop laughing. Hugo shrugged, still clutching onto his wand in case Lily decided to try killing him again.

"No wands from the underage!" their cousin Dominique said, stopping right by them, and smiling.

"Domi! When did you arrive?" Lily asked excitedly, forgetting all about her previous brawl with Hugo. Dominique was her favourite older cousin.

"Just a while ago, they kept me longer at the Prophet." She answered, moving her long blonde hair out of her eyes. "I found out just today that both of you are joining the Aurors." She said brightly, smiling at Albus and Rose. "I can't say I'm not surprised, Albus. I actually had a bet going with Vicky; she said James would be an Auror and you'd be a Healer. I lost, of course. Lily, you're my last chance!"

"If your bet is towards Quidditch, you've got it!" Lily said, smiling brightly. Dominique laughed.

"Well, I'm going to help Teddy. He seems to be getting in trouble with daddy and Lou." She said, and left them.

"So, what are the other seventh-years up to?" James asked, looking at Albus and Rose for an answer.

"Well, Scorpius is going to be working at the Ministry if he gets the NEWTs he needs." Rose said, and then looked over at Albus. "What are the Scamander twins doing?"

"Lysander is going to work with animals like their parents, but I'm not sure about Lorcan. Last time I heard, he was going for a Ministry job, but now I don't know."

"He's been researching about getting into wandlore, but it's a very rare and complicated subject."

"It is well-known that Mr. Ollivander is looking for an apprentice though." Albus interjected, not surprised at Lorcan's ambitions. He was very down-to-earth and skilled, and it seemed like he was always trying to be an overachiever.

"He's turned down so many people though, I kind of doubt he'd pick Lorcan." Rose said, shrugging.

"Dinner's ready!" Grandpa Weasley announced, and they all stood up at the same time and started walking towards the backyard, where the table had been set. Albus was on his way, when someone grabbed his arm and stopped him. He turned around to see James.

"What is it?" he asked. James smiled a little.

"Are you sure you made the right choice?"

"Of course, I—" he didn't finish. For some reason, he just couldn't. "I... What if I..."

"You'll be great wherever you are." James reassured him. "But let me tell you something... I'm afraid that Dominique will be winning that bet by the end of the school year."

He winked, and left the room, leaving a very confused Albus behind.

---

_An update! I know, it's been forever! But I got back into it, and with all the energy to finish it this time! :) So, Albus made a decision, but no one seems to think it's the right one. What do you think? :P_

_Many thanks for all the reviews and the encouragement. I'll make sure to finish this before I go back to school in March, so don't worry! Also thanks to those of you who didn't review but still added the story to your favourites/alerts. Thank you very much!_

_Please review!_

_-Phankam._


	10. Forever Young

_**Disclaimer: **__Harry Potter is property of its rightful owners, which would be JK Rowling and Warner. I, Phankam, am not either of those parties, so I definitely don't own Harry Potter. ):_

"Potter, these are not the grades expected from an Auror." Professor Vaughn said as Albus was sitting right across from him, staring at his last two essays for Potions class, which he had failed. Al swallowed and felt as if he had something in his throat, for he could not speak. "You managed to get an E in your OWL, even though this is probably your worst class, and last year you averaged an A. I'm sure you understand you just have half a year left for you to get your grades up."

"I know, sir." Albus replied, trying to make his voice sound steady. The first paper had a large P scribbled in the Professor's untidy handwriting, and the second one had a D.

"Albus, I know you can do so much better." Professor Vaughn said, smiling a little. "I can tell from these essays that you didn't put all your effort into them."

"I... I know, sir." Albus felt stupid when repeating himself, but he had no idea of what else he could say.

"Maybe you should ask Miss Weasley to help you, I know she's done so before in the past." He suggested.

"Yes, she has. I'll ask for her help, sir." Albus stood up when the Professor did so, feeling as if the meeting was over.

"You're an exceptional young man, Potter. My last advice is for you to keep your head focused in what you want."

"That's what I've been doing, sir." Al managed a shy smile, but it came out as fake. Professor Vaughn nodded, and gestured Al to leave, and so he did. He was about to reach the door when the Potions Master's voice called out his name. Albus turned around expecting another remark about his grades, but instead was surprised by a polite smile.

"I hadn't congratulated you on your amazing Quidditch team. Maybe you should make sure of putting your leadership qualities in consideration for the future. You may leave now."

Albus left hurriedly, those last words echoing in his head. Leadership qualities? He hadn't even thought about himself possessing some of those, but if he came to think of it carefully...

...

_April 20th, 2023_

_Albus:_

_Just keep fighting, brother. There's nothing worse than giving up. If you so wish to become an Auror, I know you can do it, nothing can stop you. You aced your OWLs, and you'll ace your NEWTs as well. Just keep cool, study and don't let yourself be distracted._

_But most importantly, do what you're doing for yourself. Don't let __anyone__ decide for you, because it's your future. _

_Love__ hoping to see you soon,_

_James._

"Mr Ollivander rejected my application." The oldest of the Scamander twins commented sourly as they sat in the Great Hall, at the Gryffindor table. "He said I was too young for the post."

"Too bad, I think you'd have been great at it." Annie said, smiling a little at him. Lysander nodded enthusiastically, which looked strange upon his usually carefree expression.

"Don't worry Lorcan, you'll find something." Lysander said, and went back to the letter he was writing with much care.

"Mum was a little disappointed, but she said she'd get over it... you know how close she and Mr Ollivander are... I really wanted to learn about wand-making." Lorcan explained, sighing.

"Maybe you can study on your own, or find another teacher." Albus suggested, looking around the room for his cousin Rose, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"True, and also, he just said you are too young, so maybe you can ask again some years from now." Annie added, looking at Lorcan and then Albus, noticing how he kept on looking up and down the table. "Who are you looking for?"

"Why is it that I never see Rose around anymore?"

"She's probably studying." Annie shrugged as she said so. "She desperately wants to be Outstanding in every subject she's taking."

"I'd be glad with just passing. Professor Lupin keeps sending us loads and loads of homework." Lysander complained, and Lorcan nodded in agreement.

"Transfiguration is killing me, slowly and painfully." He said, and his twin nodded with the same enthusiasm he himself had shown on his brother's statement.

"It's not so bad." Albus muttered, eyeing the door as Rose entered, holding hands with the charming-looking Scorpius Malfoy, who looked slightly down as they approached the Gryffindor table. He kissed her briefly before walking to his own House table, and the group stared as Rose sat among them. "Where were you?"

"Just talking to Scorpius, nothing special." She said a little bluntly as she helped herself to some mashed potatoes.

"He seems a little off, doesn't he?" Lorcan commented: he was one of Scorpius' closest friends. "Not in his usual mood."

Rose barely managed a non-committing shrug before starting to eat, mumbling a few incantations under her breath when she paused (her way of remembering spells for the up-coming exams). Albus stared at her, but was cut short when someone tapped on his shoulder. He turned around, and was slightly confused when Professor Longbottom smiled at him.

"Albus, Professor McGonagall needs to see you." He said with a warm smile.

"Is it about my grades? They're starting to get better, I swear." Albus said without even giving it a thought, causing everyone around him to chuckle. Neville's smile got pronounced.

"Your grades aren't even bad." Lysander muttered while his twin suppressed a giggle.

"Shut it, Lysander." Albus said, glaring at the blonde boy, who was already minding his own business, writing on a piece of parchment. "When sir?"

"Just as lunch is over, she will be at her office. I'll see you around." He said, offering the same warm smile to the bunch of seventh-years. Albus looked a little confused around, but no one seemed to have any useful comment to offer. Only Rose seemed to be deep in thought, but refused to give an explanation.

...

"I'm actually quite excited about it!" Lily piped up, smiling widely. "You've got to admit that it will be a splendid opportunity to—"

"Show off?" Hugo interrupted, and got a hard slap on his arm. "Lil! That hurt!"

"That was the whole point of hitting you, big git." She snapped, frowning. "I'm not a show-off..."

"You're not, unless it comes to Quidditch." Albus added, laughing a little. He was in such a good mood- and it had a lot to do with his conversation with Professor McGonagall- he even laughed when his sister threatened to use her infamous Bat-Bogey Hex.

"I do recall her breaking her arm trying to do the Wronski Feint at the Burrow..." Fred added, sitting down with a couple butterbeers: they were at the Hog's Head –for it was quieter than the Three Broomsticks and they didn't catch as much undesired attention- and their older cousin had agreed to meet up with them there. "It's all good fun, Lils. We all know you're a superb Quidditch player."

"I'm the best Chaser currently in Hogwarts." She snapped again, making her brother and cousins roll their eyes. "I am!"

"Wouldn't hurt to be a little more humble about it, kid." Fred insisted, although didn't deny the fact. "So, have you seen Roxie? She's stopped visiting me at the shop."

"She's probably too busy snogging... what's the name of the big Hufflepuff keeper?" Hugo asked, looking over at Lily. She smiled widely.

"Milan Adamic, and he's adorable looking, if you ask me. I'm proud of Roxie; she's surely improving her taste. Well... anything is better than Richard Davies, if you ask me."

"You make me feel like I don't know my own sister at all!" Fred looked surprised. "When did Richard Davies happen?"

"He's a great Chaser, by the way, but—AL WATCH OUT!" Hugo said, drawing his wand and trying to direct a hex and someone behind Al, but he got hit by a disarming spell. Al turned around to see someone in a black cloak jumping on him, and he didn't have time to draw his wand: not like he needed it, anyway, since a well-aimed petrifying spell was aimed at his attacker. By that time, both Lily and Fred had drawn their wand and were pointing at the attacker, who was swearing under his breath as he struggled to move.

"Thanks, guys." Al muttered, his heart racing inside his chest, and starting to make up plots inside his head: what had that been about?

"It wasn't us." Lily said, looking at the attacker. "It was Malfoy! Nice one!"

"Thanks." Scorpius said, walking towards them, wand in hand, Rose close behind him. The bartender looked curious, but didn't get close to help. "Now, shall we?"

He kneeled down and took off the intruder's mask, and they all gasped, except for Lily.

All she could muster up was a loud screech, followed by a loud cry.

"JAMES! JAMES!" she said, jumping on top of her completely paralyzed older brother. It took everyone else a second to realise what was going on, and Rose started a long, pleading call for forgiveness in her boyfriend's name, while the alluded managed to use the counter-spell for his magic work.

"James, my mate, what in Merlin's name are you doing here?" Fred said, hugging his best friend. James laughed a little, although he did seem to look a little in pain.

"I wanted to surprise you lot— went to the Three Broomsticks and all, and Lysander told me you were up for a quieter afternoon... so I came here! Of course, your faces were priceless... I could've got you all hexed up for the fun of it, but of course, Malfoy just had to _spoil _the fun, the big git."

"I'm sorry." Scorpius said, although he didn't look sorry at all: he just looked oddly amused.

"Yeah, whatever." James said, laughing as he hugged his cousin Rose and then high-fived Hugo. He finally turned to Albus, who still looked too surprised to talk. "So, brother. Have you come to terms with your future as Head of the Auror Office?"

"Oh, give me a break." Albus answered, and his cousins laughed. Scorpius just smiled a little and attempted to retreat to leave the family alone, but James was quicker, and grabbed his shoulder.

"Hey, Malfoy, you're pretty much family, you don't have to leave." He said, smiling widely.

Rose was surprised to that kind of mature response, and so was everyone else. Albus was actually thinking of a joke to go with it, but James soon put on his business face.

"Now, seriously. Can you believe these bloody idiots didn't name me for the alumni All-Star team?"

"We didn't know. Fred did get named, you know." Hugo teased, and Fred nodded, looking quite serious.

"Don't take it personally James. They just decided to take the best."

Aberforth Dumbledore had to politely ask them to leave by trying to curse their heads off when the yelling and playful hexing started.

...

"WELCOME, WELCOME! This is Lee Jordan speaking, and I'm proud to present the first-ever All-Star Alumni Quidditch match to ever take place in Hogwarts!" people cheered from the stands as Lee smiled widely from what he used to call _his_ stand, microphone in hand. Next to him, his youngest son, third-year Gryffindor Lewis Jordan, looked in envy as his dad seemed to be such a natural, something he wished he could do as well as him. "This is, of course, both a sad and a happy occasion. Today, on May 2nd, let's keep a moment of silence to honour those who fought so we could enjoy such a peaceful and happy moment, twenty-five years later."

The silence was so deep, Albus felt as if even breathing would be considered disrespectful. Just a little before, he had seen Teddy looking inadequate in his all-white Quidditch robes: he had never been a brilliant player, but him being named to the Alumni squad was something he was deeply proud of, not because of what it meant for him as a Quidditch player, but because of the occasion itself.

McGonagall had been quite straight-forward when she explained it to him: What was the point in holding a 25th banquet in which everyone was to be sad, when the whole battle had been about making the future a better place for them, the children of the heroes, to live, to grow, to laugh and enjoy?

They had had to magically expand the school's Quidditch stadium to allow all the people coming to sit, but it was surely worth it. Even the Ministry of Magic had been involved, helping with the conditioning of the place and also with the accommodations for everyone coming.

Albus understood why James was upset he hadn't been called: he was the only Potter child not to play that afternoon, and he seriously wondered why. He felt uneasy in his all-black, brand-new Quidditch clothes with the Hogwarts Crest printed in the front, and his trustworthy broom under his arm as a red band branded 'Captain' with golden letters wrapped his upper left arm, his back with a gleaming 'A. POTTER' to show the entire population surrounding the pitch who he was...

He almost sort of wished James wasn't there to see it, really.

"Are you nervous?" Lily asked, smiling widely, and Albus shook his head. She surely loved the spotlight, and was wearing the black robes with pride, also wearing a red band around her arm, although there were no words in it: it was just to show which house she belonged to, and Albus took a look around at the rest of the team.

Scorpius smiled a little at him, but still managed to look sad: his own father had been called to play as a reserve for the alumni team, but not even talking with his only son would convince him to be 'second to Harry Potter', not under any circumstance.

"Firstly, THE HOGWARTS ALL-STARS!" Albus knew that was their cue to enter. His sister smiled widely as she jumped on her broom and followed Andrei Krum, flying outside into the pitch. "Slytherin Chaser, Andrei Krum! Gryffindor Chaser, Lily Potter! Ravenclaw Chaser, Scorpius Malfoy!"

He could hear people applauding, and he felt a little nervous for a second. Ignatius, a seventh-year like him but from Ravenclaw, hit his shoulder jokingly with his Beater bat and smiled widely.

"Don't worry Potter, we'll be fine!" he said before jumping on his broom and followed the rather big Nate Miles, from Hufflepuff.

"Hufflepuff Beater, Nathaniel Miles! Ravenclaw Beater, Ignatius Vaughn!" more cheering followed the entrance of the two players. Albus looked over at Alice, who kissed him briefly.

"It's my turn, isn't it?" she said, jumping on her broom. Albus smiled widely and nodded.

"Gryffindor Keeper, Alicia Wood!" she flew off and Albus prepared to fly in as well, his heart beat strong against his eardrums. He started flying towards the exit, the adrenaline starting to rush through his veins. "And finally, Captain of this squad and Gryffindor Seeker, Albus Potter!"

He entered the brightly-sunny pitch with a huge grin plastered upon his face, and circled the pitch a couple times before stopping by his team, a few meters off the middle of the field.

"And now what I'm sure you've been expecting wildly... THE ALL-STAR ALUMNI TEAM!" Lee surely knew how to make a crowd roar, Albus thought. He looked expectantly at the entrance, and heard the names and saw the mostly-familiar faces entering the pitch. "Ravenclaw Chaser, Roger Davies! Gryffindor Chaser, Ted Lupin! Gryffindor Chaser, Ginny Weasley-Potter!"

Albus looked over at his sister, who beamed in pride as their mother circled the pitch as she used to during her Holyhead Harpies times wearing the white robes with the red band that branded her as Captain on her arm, smiling widely, obviously in her element.

"Gryffindor Beaters... Fred and George Weasley!"

For everyone who had been at Hogwarts at the same time as the Weasley twins would know why that sounded the way it did: It was a mixture of sadness but hope all mixed together as father and son flew into the pitch, the youngest one reminding everyone so much of his namesake that the applause was even bigger, if not more respectful at the same time.

"Gryffindor Keeper, Oliver Wood! And lastly, but not less important…!"

Everyone held supreme silence as Albus looked at the entrance place for the players, expecting his dad to zoom in flying anytime now.

The shimmering white-blonde hair wasn't something he expected at all.

"Slytherin Seeker, Draco Malfoy!"

Scorpius mouth fell wide-open at the sudden appearance of his dad. Albus was totally numb from the shock, and Lily looked confused as well. Only their mother seemed to fully understand what was going on, and she pointed towards the stands that acted as benches, where their dad waved at them, sitting by Uncle Ron, who waved at them as well.

All in all, he knew his dad loved playing the noble prat, and it made him immensely happy. Scorpius was thrilled and smiled at his dad before taking his spot around the circle to begin the game, as Alicia and her dad flew to opposite sides of the field, preparing themselves.

"Your father is a great man, Potter." Mr. Malfoy said to him when they were in front of each other, waiting for the Snitch to be released. Albus wanted to say something back, but no words came to his mouth. He was stunned by the words, considering the Malfoy family wasn't exactly liked by his family until Scorpius came along, but finally managed a smile.

"And now… LET THE MATCH BEGIN!"

Albus had been young when his mother had been on the top of her Quidditch career, but it was clear why she had become so famous: for her, getting past Alicia wasn't hard at all. He saw that Ignatius and Nate were becoming rather fond of staying by their Keeper to help her, and thus making it easier for Fred and Uncle George to hit Bludgers towards Lily, Scorpius and Andrei.

He had to stick to his own job: finding the golden snitch. Mr. Malfoy was a good flyer, but didn't seem to have a very good eye, and that could be his advantage: that he wore glasses didn't mean anything but that it helped see better, not worse. He circled the pitch, going by the stands were his dad was sitting, who always smiled at him.

He heard Uncle Lee announcing that the Hogwarts team had scored, and he turned to see Lily beaming as she hugged Andrei and stormed off to get the Quaffle again. Scorpius followed, intercepting a pass that was heading towards Teddy. The metamorphmagus' hair turned bright red as he sped up to cut in front of Scorpius, who dropped the Quaffle, just to have Lily catch it and quickly pass it to Andrei, who attempted to score again but was blocked by Alicia's dad.

The score was 60-10, which was pretty reachable, but he wanted to catch the Snitch and win quickly, even though he was greatly enjoying the action. He saw that Mr. Malfoy was still looking around, his white-blonde hair seemingly sparkling in the sun, just like his son's.

He wondered exactly why his dad had decided against playing himself as the main Seeker, and had opted to be a reserve to Scorpius' dad, but the sound of Lee's voice announcing that Teddy had scored took him off his own thoughts.

"Albus! Go and find that damned Snitch!" Lily yelled, and was overheard by their mother, who was just flying past, and received a scowl. "Sorry, mum! But this is Quidditch!"

Her comeback was met by laughter from Albus and Scorpius, and the game continued normally for a while, with Lily scoring once more, along with Andrei.

And then, he saw it, just a golden-spark above Alumni's goal-posts: the Snitch. He started flying full speed towards it, hoping to get there before the older Seeker.

"AND IT SEEMS AS IF ALBUS HAS SPOTTED THE SNITCH! AND THE RACE HAS STARTED!"

Whether he was talking about the race for the snitch or the race that his heart was having inside his ears, Albus wasn't sure. He stretched out his hand and closed his fingers around the small ball, but suddenly the feeling of smug happiness disappeared as something hit the back of his broom, and even though they had joked about it for ages, it still took him off-guard. Suddenly, there was nothing underneath him to hold his weight as his broom snapped in two pieces, and even though he felt someone trying to grab onto his robes, he was still falling, his glasses abandoning his face as he saw the ground coming blurry but obviously nearer him.

He closed his eyes, expecting a hard hit, but it wasn't as bad as he expected, although he did fall on top of his arm in a strange and stupid effort to stop the fall: it cracked under his weight, and he fell on his side, trying not to moan at the pain.

"Al! Al! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!" Fred said, jumping off his broom and running towards him. "Shit, are you okay?"

He was soon surrounded by lots of people, but he couldn't see well without his glasses to help him, and there was so much talking he could barely understand what was being said. He tried to sit up, but the pain was kind of too much to move: apparently, his arm hadn't only broken but had also shattered pretty badly, judging by the amount of pain he was feeling.

"Get out of my way, that's my brother!" James' voice yelled over the crowd. "I'm a Mediwizard, get out of my way!"

"You're not yet a Mediwizard!" Lily complained when she was shoved aside.

"I am, kid. Oh mum, don't give me that look, I got my certification… I just wanted it to be a surprise!" James explained, kneeling down by his brother and rolling up his sleeves. "Did my spell slow down your fall a little?"

"Was that you, really? Impressive." Their dad commented, kneeling by them and putting Albus' glasses in front of his eyes so he could see. Their mum was there, too, looking very pale and scared.

"Not the time for compliments, father. I have work to do." James said, moving Albus slightly to keep the arm in better sight. "I'm sorry if it hurts, but I'm not carrying any pain-potion with me—"

"Aren't you supposed to be the best potion-maker of your team?" Albus asked, smiling a little even through the pain. Lily giggled.

"Oh, give me a break." James pointed his wand and apparently used a non-verbal spell that made Albus' arm glow in a strange blue light, and he felt a tickling sensation going on under his skin, maybe even under his muscles, sensation that brought both pain and a strange relief. "_Ferula_."

He conjured a splint and bandages that wrapped themselves around Albus' arm, and he finally sat up, although he still felt slightly sick. The tiny snitch was still fluttering inside his healthy hand.

"We won." He said, suddenly realizing what had happened.

The roar of the crowd, especially coming from the current Hogwarts students, was deafening.

…

"Dad, mum is totally right about you. You _are_ a noble prat." James said, laughing. Harry raised an eyebrow, but laughed as well as he kept on eating: The Annual May 2nd Banquet was as good as usual, but the mood had obviously improved since other years: it felt as a closing to an era and the beginning of a new one, with new young witches and wizards, the ones who had lived all through peaceful times, and an era in which the previous generation was coming to terms with their newfound inner peace.

"Draco deserved it. He has been a nice guy, overall. And I thought it'd mean something to have someone from the Slytherin that we shared with in our years of school. It's…"

"A way to reconcile, right?" Ginny completed his sentence, smiling comprehensibly at her husband, who nodded. The three Potter children smiled at each other: even if they had not lived through those dark years, the stories summed it up pretty well and they had grown in times in which there was still resentments and hatred, and it had been partly their mission to help get over the stigma that surrounded the children and grandchildren of the ones who hadn't exactly played the 'good guys' part in the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998.

"And we won!" Lily added excitedly, killing off the thoughtful mood but bringing a smile on everyone's faces at once. They were sitting on their own table, one of many around the Great Hall.

"You did score some amazing shots, princess." Harry said, smiling widely. "Truly your mother's daughter."

"What about Al? He was a total Harry Potter today: he caught the Snitch at the same time he managed to fall off his broom!"

"James deserves some credit too, doesn't he?" Albus added, not wanting his parents to exaggerate anything or make too many comparisons: he knew how much they hurt, and how hard they were to overcome.

"It's just my job, really. Plus, I could beat you both any day." He grinned at his younger siblings.

"I can't see how, considering you all play different positions…" Harry tried to calm things down, but his kids, for once, weren't actually discussing seriously, just joking around with each other… it was like watching them grow up, all at once.

"Talking about your job… I can't believe you got your certification! Weren't you getting it by the end of June?" Lily asked happily.

"That's what I thought, but in the end, I got it beforehand. I'm just that good, you know. And I'm already planning what I shall be doing next year… but that, of course, is an announcement that I'll make with the whole family in a couple weeks!"

James was pretty secretive about it, so they didn't push the matter forward and instead decided to enjoy the incredible moment they had gathered for.

Harry knew that this was what he had fought for: it wasn't so they could sit down and cry the losses suffered, but to remember them warmly and happily… they had died for a brighter future, after all.

…

Coming back to The Burrow had a different feeling, so as leaving Hogwarts for one last time had had for Albus. He was never coming back, at least not as a student. Where had the last seven years gone?

He had around six-weeks before Auror training started, and he wasn't feeling quite ready. He wished he had time to think things over, to sort his own thoughts out, but there was no way to get quiet time when the whole Weasley clan was gathered together for the summer. Was he really ready to follow in his father's footsteps, even though he wasn't too keen onto the idea of becoming an Auror?

Rose had gotten outstanding results in all of her NEWTs, as was expected, and came second of the class only to Scorpius, who had taken an additional subject compared to her. Albus, meanwhile, had managed to put his Potions' grades up enough to get the E he needed in his NEWT for being fully accepted as an Auror, but then again…

He had other opportunities, and he knew the chances were there, waiting, actually inside his robes' pocket, in the form of a letter. What would he do?

"Children, dinner is ready!" Grandma Weasley would never get over calling them children, he knew for sure, noticing how she still called her sons and daughter children from time to time. He went outside and sat in his usual place between Rose and Lily, and looked around the table to all of his family members.

All of them had had an impact on his life, because he had been raised to close to them. He would never forget any moment with them: Victoire teaching him how to fly a broom when his dad had disclosed he was too young, or Dominique agreeing to play gobstones with him when no one else would. Not even Louis telling on him when he had been the one to hide a spider in Uncle Ron's shoe, or when Molly and Lucy played a prank on him that involved leaving him hanging upside down off a tree for what had seemed like the longest time, even if it had just been a few minutes. Roxanne forcing him to play dolls with her brought a smile to his lips; at the same time as Fred refusing to let him play with his Quidditch toys had brought to much sadness to him.

So many changes were coming his way, but he was ready for them: he was no longer little stuttering Albus, he was a grown man. Or he felt that way, at least. On both of his sides, his best friend and cousin looked worry-free as she enjoyed the meal, and Lily was talking animatedly to James, who was listening with a broad smile.

James suddenly stood up, trying to catch everyone's attention. He succeeded quiet easily, and smiled.

"Family! I can't believe I've actually managed to keep this a secret for so long, but I need to tell you now because otherwise, I'll implode!"

"Just say it, Jamie!" Fred yelled from the other side, causing a bit of laughter.

"Don't you dare call me that again, Freddy! Only mum is allowed!" James answered, and the laughs continued for a second before everyone settled down again. "Well… As you know, I'm a certified mediwizard by now, but I've come to realize that maybe working as a Healer isn't my thing so…"

"You're going into the Quidditch Injuries field, aren't you?" Lily asked excitedly. There was murmur of approval around the table, and James waited for them to settle down again.

"Actually, Lils, I'm not. After giving it much thought… I'm following my dad and brother's footsteps, and becoming a Mediwizard Auror!"

Dominique let out a big cry of 'YES!' before the news sank in.

It took a long time before everyone stopped congratulating both James and Harry, and even longer for everyone to leave Albus some alone time with his brother to talk. Actually, it wasn't until later on that night, when both of them were getting prepared to crawl into their usual beds in The Burrow, that they finally had a chance to talk.

"You're awfully quiet, Al." James noted, putting on his red pajamas and smiling a little at his brother. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just…" Albus shrugged, not knowing what to say. "Stunned, I think."

"I have that effect on girls, and it's kind of shocking to find I have it on boys as well." James joked, sitting by his little brother. "I hope you're not upset I'm ruining the spotlight for you."

"You know I don't like the spotlight to begin with, James." Albus rolled his eyes. "And I'm actually really happy for you. You'll be a great Auror, just like you're a great Mediwizard."

"I'm not a great Mediwizard, I'm just average."

"What you did at the Quidditch match didn't seem average to me." Albus said, smiling and elbowing him slightly. "See? My arm almost doesn't hurt anymore."

"Oh, you git. It shouldn't hurt at all! I'm good at composing bones!"

"Sure you are, Potter."

They wrestled for a second before calming down and just laughing it off. James was the first one to stop, and grinned at his brother.

"So, we'll see each other at Auror training, won't we? It shall be fun, competing in equal terms!"

"Well… about that…"

James stopped grinning at the seriousness at Albus' face.

"You're not the only one allowed to make sudden decisions, James. I am too entitled to my own craziness at times."

"Oh yes, sure, but you've never used that power." James joked, although he was expecting an explanation soon. Albus merely shrugged again. "Come on; don't have me hanging here…"

"Someone once told me that I had to do things for myself, and that I shouldn't let anyone decide my future for me…"

"You're starting to get annoyingly poetic, boy."

"… That person, as I'm learning, was right. He always was, in his weird ways. I mean, I always thought he hated me! But I guess I owe him a great deal, for he did many great things for me in the past. And, once again, he helped me greatly to get a step closer to becoming a better wizard and man…"

"Get to the point." James was starting to feel a little sentimental, and wasn't about to ruin the image his brother was professing of him with tears.

"You're right, James. I shouldn't be an Auror because everyone expects me to. I should be what I want to be because I want to."

"About time you understood it! So…?"

"St. Mungo's accepted my application to become a trainee for Healing, and said that with my outstanding grades, I could even get a foreign place to take me for a year to get a Mediwizard certification."

"Following onto your brother's footsteps then, huh?" James joked, slapping his brother lightly.

"It's more like opening up my own path."

"You do know you can count on me on every step though, right?" James asked in a more serious tone after he had congratulated the young man he had once called his baby brother. Albus was crawling into bed, but stopped to look thankfully at his brother. "I could even give you some lessons on Bulgarian if you ever needed them."

"I'll make sure to ask you."

"That's what brothers are for, aren't them? To help each other in understanding weird languages and the ways of Healing?"

"I'm sure it is, James."

They turned off the lights, and silence took over for a second, broken by the younger of the two.

"Dominique won her bet." He commented casually, and James made a sort of grunting positive response. "How did you know I was going to go into healing in the end?"

"It's just part of your nature, just like being out in the action is part of mine."

"... then why did you go into healing in the first place, instead of just going to the Auror Academy?"

"Well, I figured I could use a little Albus training in life."

Albus went to sleep with a smile on his lips that night.

Those words were all the proof he needed: his brother James actually somehow looked up to some of his qualities, and he was elated by that.

After years, he had won his older brother's approval. And at the same time, they had come to terms.

Years of constant fighting and bickering, and pranks and getting into each other's lives , and just messing around with each other's heads, it just came down to that: no matter what happened, he knew he would always have his brother by his side, and nothing would change that.

_Wow… can't believe it. It's the end of this, people. It's been a long time since I started, and it's finally finished. Those ten chapters took me a while, but I hope it was worth it. Thanks for everyone who reviewed, favourited and put this story in their alert through these almost exactly 18 months. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it: finishing a story is always rough, but I think I've coped well._

_Who knows, I might even write a sequel some day. Or not?_

_Again, thanks to everyone! :)_

_-Phankam._


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